


you're the one that i want

by tempestbreak



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: 69 (Sex Position), Alternate Universe - Grease (1978) Fusion, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Beach Sex, Blow Jobs, Car Sex, First Time, Greaser Richie Tozier, Groping, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Infidelity, Lovers to enemies to lovers, M/M, Minor Ben Hanscom/Beverly Marsh, No Racism, Prep Eddie Kaspbrak, Rimming, Semi-Public Sex, Some Period-Typical Sex Negativity, Some angst, Spanking, Switching, Up Shorts, but otherwise this is FOR FUN ONLY, but they're both horny af, idealized version of the 1950s, only some but it's there, some internalized homophobia, they're sleazy and in love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-06
Updated: 2020-07-06
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:21:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 23,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25109158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tempestbreak/pseuds/tempestbreak
Summary: "It’s just… I don’t want you to look back on this and regret it. I don’t know if I’m ever gonna see you again, and—”“Don’t talk like that…”“It’s true! I had the best summer of my life, and now you have to go away. It isn’t fair.”“You really think this is the end?”“…I’d like to think it’s just the beginning.”--Or: It's the summer of '58 when Richie and Eddie meet on the beach and fall in love. It's the fall of '58 when Richie and Eddie meet at Rydell High and realize how little they knew each other.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 83
Kudos: 371





	you're the one that i want

**Author's Note:**

> hello and welcome to the grease AU that i didn't know i would be writing until a few days ago! work has been insane: i've been working 12- to 15-hour days five days a week for the past month and a half, finding less and less time to write, so i decided to sit down on this three-day weekend and write something that was fun ONLY.
> 
> please be aware that richie and eddie (and the rest) are all kinda dicks to each other. this is meant to be fun and sleazy, like the movie itself. please also recall that according to the story, they are 18 and in high school in this, but if that skeeves you out, feel free to imagine that they're being played by actors who are 24 to 34 years old and can in no way pass for teenagers. also like in the movie itself.
> 
> i went real light on all the shitty stuff about the 1950s for this. also did very minimal research, and i know nothing about cars. please be stan with the painting if you see anything dumb. suspend your disbelief. GREASE IS THE WORD.

_“Eddie, Eddie, hold up, wait…”_

_“What is it? Do you not want to—?”_

_“No, it’s not that. I do! I just… I don’t want to spoil this.”_

_“It’s not spoiling it, Richie. It’s only making it better.”_

_“Heh, is that right…? Your mom give me some good reviews?”_

_“Okay,_ that’s _spoiling it…”_

_“Eds! Get back here. You’re so dramatic.”_

_“Ugh.”_

_“Don’t be like that, you’re the one who wanted to meet here, under the boardwalk, so… kiss me. Kiss me, you fool!”_

_“Mm. But I don’t want to ‘spoil it’…”_

_“Jeez, I guess I didn’t mean ‘spoil it’. It’s just… I don’t want you to look back on this and regret it. I don’t know if I’m ever gonna see you again, and—”_

_“Don’t talk like that…”_

_“It’s true! I had the best summer of my life, and now you have to go away. It isn’t fair.”_

_“You really think this is the end?”_

_“…I’d like to think it’s just the beginning.”_

***

It’s the beginning of senior year at Rydell High, and Richie Tozier, class of ’59, is on top of the world.

He struts onto campus wearing the signature leather jacket of the Bruisers, his hair greased and coiffed perfectly (after nearly an hour trying to get it to behave), sunglasses (prescription, _shh_ ) perched above a perpetual smirk. He’s got a solid crew, he saved up enough from his job at the movie theater to finally buy an old piece-of-shit jalopy to soup up in the school garage, and, not to brag, but he lost his virginity.

“So how was everyone’s s-summer?” Bill asks, lounging on the bleachers as they cut class before lunch. “Anyone get any?”

Ah, who’s he kidding? Obviously he’s gonna brag.

Of course, he can’t specifically brag about losing his virginity because he supposedly lost that years ago to Sandy Olsson. (And actually, now that he’s on the subject, does what happened last school year count as losing your virginity? Someone else made him come, but there wasn’t any—no, no, that should _not_ count, he made a total fool of himself.) Anyway, the point is, he can still brag. In more detail. Although, he’ll have to make up _some_ details…

“Yeah, man,” says Richie, talking around the cigarette hanging from his mouth. “I met a girl who was crazy for me.”

Bev sits up, grinning. She’s the only girl in their group, but she’s one of the best guys Richie knows. “Ooh, tell me more.”

***

It’s the beginning of senior year at Rydell High, and Eddie Kaspbrak, class of ’59, is at the end of his rope.

He slinks onto the unfamiliar campus in the track-and-field letterman jacket from his old high school and immediately feels like the world’s biggest idiot. The colors are all wrong, and everyone’s staring at him in confusion. He’s pretty sure he hears some girls in A-line skirts laugh at him. Why did Myra want him to wear this? Why did he _let_ Myra convince him to wear this?

The answer is readily apparent at lunch when she stands him at the end of the table and says, “Everyone, this is Eddie. He just transferred schools from Maine, where he was all-state in the hundred-meter dash.” She smiles up at him. “Show them your letters, Eddie.”

Sheepishly, Eddie lifts the arm that has the jacket draped over it. He tries to angle it so the big green D for Derry is showing.

One guy, who’s also wearing a lettered jacket but with the appropriate colors, calls, “Welcome to Rydell, Eddie. You gonna try out for the team here?”

“Yeah, was planning on it,” Eddie says, wondering if he can take a seat or if he’s still being displayed.

“Awesome, Coach Calhoun would be glad to have you,” says the guy with a smile. “I’m Ben, I do javelin and hammer throw.”

“Oh, that’s right,” says Myra, sliding her tray onto the table and sitting down. Eddie follows her lead. “I forgot you’re on the team, Ben. Maybe he can show you the ropes, Eddie.”

“Yeah, maybe.”

“Be happy to,” says Ben, and wow. He might be the first genuinely nice person Eddie has met at Rydell. Eddie gives him an uncertain smile and tucks into the cafeteria food.

“So how was everyone else’s summer?” Myra asks, in the tone that Eddie knows means she’s only asking because she wants to be asked. At everyone’s noncommittal _good_ s and _fine_ s, she carries on, “Ours was wonderful. Eddie asked me to go steady.”

Eddie’s shoulders hunch awkwardly as the girls around the table coo. It’s not like he was particularly romantic about it; it just felt like the right thing to do. He and Myra had met at a church function his mom and aunt had dragged him to at the beginning of the summer, and he just… kept seeing her, and she clearly _wanted_ him to ask, and when he found out he was going to be transferring to Rydell he figured _why not?_ Besides, he thought somehow that it might distract him, might help him get over—

“Oh, you met over the summer?” Ben asks politely.

“Yes,” Myra says proudly, “we saw each other from across the rec room, and I said to Jan, ‘Who _is_ that boy, he’s cute as can be!’”

“Myra—” Eddie starts.

But a girl in a ponytail leans in, chin in her hands. “Aww, tell me more!”

***

“Yeah, tell us more,” says Bill, sitting up eagerly. “Did you get very far?”

“Please, Billiam, a lady doesn’t kiss and tell.”

“You’re no lady,” Bev scoffs. “C’mon, how did you meet? Did she get a cramp while swimming and you had to save her from drowning?”

“Did you perform mouth-to-muh-mouth?”

“Feel her up while performing CPR?”

Richie laughs in spite of himself, turning away from them to buy himself time to think. How can he do this without giving himself away…?

“I met her while I was working,” he finally says, “in the arcade.”

***

“Then we saw each other again,” Myra goes on, deeply gratified that someone has asked, “on the beach. He ran by me in the waves, got my suit damp.”

Eddie remembers that day, too, but for a slightly different reason. He’d been running, sure, trying to stay fit for track, but he had barely noticed Myra. There was someone else on his radar.

Myra giggles, giving Eddie’s shoulder a playful nudge. “He was splashing around, showing off.”

***

“And?” Bev asks, prompting, her well-shaped eyebrows halfway up her forehead.

Richie thinks, taking himself back to that day. “We walked down the boardwalk. Drank lemonade.”

“ _Lemonade_?”

Richie smirks. “I offered to spike hers, but she’s a _good girl_. You know what I mean?”

“Ugh, c’mon, Richie, skip to the juicy stuff already,” Bev whines.

“I don’t wanna _brag_ …” Richie lies.

“You don’t have to b-brag,” says Bill, “just tell us.”

“Yeah, ’cause as of right now, she sounds like a total drag.”

“Fine, fine!” Richie laughs, puffing on his cigarette and finally removing it from his mouth. “You really wanna know?”

“Yes!”

“ _Well_ …” Richie closes his eyes. Remembers hard lips, hot breath, frantic hands gripping the collar of his arcade uniform. “We made out. Under the dock.”

***

“We saw each other almost every day. One night, we stayed out ’til ten o’clock!”

“That’s adorable!” says the ponytail girl. “So it was love at first sight?”

“Oh, I don’t know about _that_ ,” says Myra coyly. “You’d have to ask Eddie.”

Eddie swallows the bite of food he has in his mouth. He thinks about his summer. Remembers dark hair, crooked smile, rough hands smoothing down his chest. “Something like that,” he admits.

Myra beams at him, so it must have been the right answer. “And then he asked to hold my _hand_.”

***

“Ooh, now that’s what I’m _talkin’ about_ ,” crows Bev, rocking backwards with glee. “Did she get friendly?”

“Yeah, _real_ friendly.” A beach blanket, the roaring of the waves nearby, gasping heat. Salt in the air and on his cheeks. “Down in the sand.”

***

“Eddie was just so sweet,” sighs Myra. “I knew he was going to ask me to go steady, but he still made me wait until the end of the summer!”

Eddie feels all eyes on him. He thinks of why he waited. Why he did it.

“It was the summer,” he finally says, heart hollow. “I thought we’d never see each other again.”

***

“Was she good?”

“More importantly, could she get me a friend?” Bill laughs as Bev smacks him upside the head.

Richie laughs. “Yeah,” he says. “She was the best.”

Bill and Bev exchange a look, and Richie’s stomach drops. Something in how he said it must have made it clear that his feelings run a little deeper than usual. Something more than a joke.

“Eh, typical summer story, right?” he chuckles with a shrug. “Boy and girl meet; boy and girl play some backseat bingo; boy and girl part ways. Bo- _ring_.”

“You think you’ll see her again?” Bill asks, more softly than Richie’s used to.

Richie’s heart twists. “Nah. Not unless she goes back next summer.”

***

“It was so romantic,” Myra gushes. “Eddie was the perfect gentleman. Weren’t you, Eddie?”

Eddie flushes unpleasantly. Remembers gripping fabric, crushing lips, desperate for touch and afraid of never having it again. “I try.”

“Then we made,” Myra sighs, putting a hand to her heart, “our true love vow.”

***

Richie sighs, resting his head on his folded hands. Remembers trembling fingers, searching eyes, desperate for connection and afraid of losing it. “Wonder what he’s doing now.”

It takes a moment for him to realize.

“She,” he corrects himself, heart pounding. “Wonder what she’s doing now.”

***

“Oh, those summer nights.”

Eddie’s head jerks up at the drawling voice. Standing over them, blocking the sun so his curly hair is haloed with light, is a guy wearing a faded red bomber jacket. He’s smiling thinly down at them, his hands shoved in his pockets.

“Hey, Stan!” Ben greets him cheerily.

“Hello, Stanley,” Myra says, and Eddie has to glance her way to confirm that her tone is just as strained as he thinks it is. The smile on her face is little more than gritted teeth.

“Miss Simcox,” the guy, Stan, replies. His voice drips with sarcastic civility.

“Time to hit the shop?” Ben asks, extricating a leg from under the picnic-style table.

“Yeah, Mrs. Murdock told Mike they got some new parts in. I think we could finally get that T-Bird running.”

“Nifty.”

Eddie’s ears perk up sincerely for the first time since arriving at Rydell. “You’ve got a garage at the school?”

Stan raises an eyebrow, eyes raking over him. “You interested in cars, newbie? Don’t look like a grease monkey to me.”

Eddie’s skin prickles a little at the challenge. “I worked part-time at the garage in my old hometown. A real garage, _not_ attached to the school.”

Stan’s gaze is appraising. Eddie stares back at him. Ben stands between them, glancing back and forth.

“Well, come on, then, newbie,” Stan finally says. He jerks his head and then turns, exposing the decal on the back of his jacket, which reads _Rydell Red-Hots_ in font curling around a cherry-red muscle car. He’s clearly expecting Eddie to follow him. Ben is already on his heels.

With only a second’s hesitation, Eddie swings his leg over the bench, grabs his books, and rushes to chase after them, pulling his jacket back on haphazardly against the September breeze.

“Eddie!” Myra exclaims, but he barely spares her a wave in his haste to catch up.

“…a good summer, Stan?” Ben’s asking.

“Can’t complain.”

“What about you, Eddie? You do anything else this summer? I mean, other than hang out with Myra.”

“Other than make your true love vow,” Stanley drawls over his shoulder.

Ben shoots Stan a warning look, but Eddie finds that he’s laughing in spite of himself. It gets Ben to chuckle, too. Stan’s face warms almost imperceptibly.

“Uh, yeah,” says Eddie, “I made a really good friend, actually. He worked at the arcade.”

“That’s nice,” says Ben.

“Worked at the arcade, huh?” Stan’s tone makes it sound like the lamest way one could spend the time.

“Yeah, it was pretty cool,” Eddie says, defensively. “He showed me how to win at the claw machine. I got free tokens for Skee-Ball.”

Stan snorts, as though the idea is ludicrous. “Skee-Ball.”

Eddie’s not sure why Stan’s tone doesn’t shut him up. Maybe because this is his first opportunity talk about what he’s been thinking of ever since he left that beach town. “Yeah, at first I thought he was just a goof, couldn’t put a lid on it, you know? But he turned out to be a really good guy. Kind of a riot.” Eddie laughs to himself, recalling what _he_ would say. “Real chuckalicious.”

Ben trips. “Chucka—”

Abruptly, Stan’s hand darts out and grips Ben’s arm. “Careful there, Benjamin, you almost fell,” he says sharply. He turns to Eddie, his face neutral. “A really good guy, you say?”

Eddie frowns warily. “Yeah?”

“A real sweetheart, giving you those tokens. Musta taken quite a shine to you.”

Eddie looks away, shifting uncomfortably. “I mean, I guess. He was all right.”

“Yeah, ‘all right’…” Stan’s eyes drag over him one more time, even more calculating than the last. “What was his name?”

“Richie,” Eddie says reluctantly. “Richie Tozier.”

Ben lets out a strange noise, halfway between a laugh and a whine. “Richie—”

Stan snakes an arm around Ben’s shoulders, but his eyes don’t leave Eddie. “Well, he sounds like a real peach,” he says, sweetly. He squeezes Ben to him, a smile slowly spreading. “Ben, my boy, I just remembered. We gotta make a quick detour.”

***

Richie, Bev, and Bill are climbing down from the bleachers when Bill mutters, “Stanley at seven o’clock.”

Richie’s spine straightens, a small tendril of dread curling through his veins. He knew he’d have to deal with Stanley eventually, what with his beater going into the school’s garage. Stan’s a Red-Hot; there’s no way he was going to be able to avoid him forever. He was just hoping he’d be able to go a little bit more than one school day.

“Hey, Trashmouth!”

Richie manages to school his face into its familiar mask of smirking nonchalance, even though his heart is pounding. When he turns around, though, he’s still startled. Stanley is standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Ben Hanscom, as well, which is… odd. Richie likes Ben from afar—knows Bev thinks he’s, quote, “the _most_ ”—but he had no clue he was friends with Stanley. His brain goes into overdrive, doing the social math.

_Stanley’s friends with Ben, who’s friends with Jan, who’s friends with Myra Simcox, who’s friends with all her fellow paper-shakers on the cheerleading squad and also happens to be the biggest gossip in the school—_

“Hey, Stanley, what’s shakin’?” Richie asks coolly, unrolling the pack of cigarettes from his white shirtsleeve and giving it a tap against his palm. When he looks up, Stanley is smirking back at him in a way that makes his blood freeze.

“I got a surprise for you,” says Stanley.

_Here? Now?_ Richie tries not to glance at Bev and Bill, flanking him. “Oh, yeah?” he says, all forced nonchalance.

Stanley’s smile widens. “Yeah.” And he steps aside before Richie can even try to think on his feet, reaching behind him to thrust someone forward, and it’s—

_“Eddie!?”_

Richie’s jaw drops at the same time as his heart leaps into his throat. He pushes his sunglasses up into his hair; it makes his vision worse but he finds he wants to see unfiltered because— it can’t be. _It can’t be_.

But it is. It’s Eddie, stumbling to stand before him: neat side-parted hair, big brown eyes, thick eyebrows twitching at Stanley in annoyance, before he lays eyes on Richie himself and then his expression goes slack with shock.

_“Richie?”_

Richie takes a step towards him, feels the smile spreading across his face. “I thought you were going back to Maine!”

A smile’s growing on Eddie’s face, too, and Richie’s heart is swelling, choking him. “We had a change of plans,” he breathes, incredulous, his huge eyes trained right on Richie’s. They look the same as Richie remembers, even late that last night, dark and happy. Shining.

“I can’t—” Richie exhales, and abruptly stops. Because suddenly he’s aware of more eyes than just Eddie’s on him. It’s Stanley. It’s Bill, it’s Bev, it’s even Ben. It feels like everyone, everyone in the world, is looking at Richie “Trashmouth” Tozier, whose careful mask has slipped into an expression of open sincerity for the first time since he donned a leather jacket and took grease to his frizzy, godforsaken hair.

And not only is that expression trained on a _boy_ , it’s trained on a boy who looks like _this_. Sporting a haircut even their parents would find respectable, hugging his books to his chest, wearing a fucking _letterman jacket_ that’s clearly not even for Rydell. I mean, can you get any more square?

Stanley raises a knowing eyebrow.

Richie shutters his face.

“That’s cool, man,” Richie says lazily, looking down to pull a cig from his pack. He lets his shades slide back onto his nose, greasy against the bridge. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Eddie’s expression flicker.

“Cool?”

Richie smirks. “Yeah, you know, cool. Bitchin’. The cat’s meow.”

Eddie frowns. Richie ignores how his heart twists painfully. “Yeah, I mean… my aunt lives around here, so.”

“Yeah?” Richie puts the cigarette in his mouth and lights it. “She hot?”

Bill and Bev snicker.

Eddie’s face goes harder. “She’s married.”

“No problem. I like a challenge.”

When Richie glances at him, Eddie’s eyes start to flash. “Yeah? Must be a change of pace considering you’re so desperate.”

It cuts, just a little.

“Ooohh,” laughs Bev, waggling her fingers.

Richie shoots her a glare before turning back to Eddie, spreading his hands to either side like he’s got nothing to hide. Like he’s not hiding the ache in his chest. “Hm, you think _I’m_ desperate?” He knows Eddie catches the subtle emphasis by how his gaze flicks to Stan, Ben. “Guess you _would_ have to be pretty desperate to give it up under the boardwalk like a hobo.”

Stanley’s eyebrows shoot up at that, but Richie tries to focus instead on how Bev is stifling her giggles with a hand, how Bill is nearly guffawing.

Eddie’s eyes are fully blazing. “I wouldn’t be caught _dead_ under the boardwalk.”

Richie smirks. “Wouldn’t wanna soil that pretty letterman jacket, huh, Eds?”

Eddie looks abruptly like he wants to rip it from his body. Richie wants to rip it from his body. Richie wants to take it off him gently, the way he slid his button-down shirt from his shoulders in the moonlight. Wants to say he’s sorry with his hands, cloaked in darkness.

“Yeah,” Eddie out bitterly, eyes leaving Richie’s to catch on his cigarette, his jelly roll hair, his black leather, “it’s amazing what a difference a fucking jacket makes.”

And then he turns on his heel and stalks off, as Bev and Bill nearly fall apart laughing on either side of Richie. Ben goes after Eddie almost immediately, and Richie aches as he watches their backs retreat, longing to follow them.

Then he notices Stanley. He’s lingering, eyes shining with pleasure as he takes Richie in. When their gazes lock, Richie knows that Stanley knows.

Well, Stanley knows too much already.

***

Eddie’s mood does not improve for the rest of the week. Ben, who Eddie is quickly learning is a real sweetheart, seems to sense it because he invites Eddie to hang out with him, Stan, and their friend Mike on Friday, after the first football game of the semester. Eddie agrees, but only because Myra had already told him he had to go to the game since she’ll be cheerleading. She wanted him to wear his jacket again, but this time he could not be convinced.

He’d rather burn the damn thing, quite honestly.

So Richie Tozier’s an asshole, he thinks as he sucks on a soda in the bleachers. He tries hard not to glare in the direction of the parking lot, where Richie and his two dumbass friends are draped over a shitty-looking car. It shouldn’t be a surprise to him. Richie’s tall and cocky and hilarious when he’s not trying too much. He has dark hair and blue eyes and an overbite that he forgets to hide if he’s really laughing, and Eddie fell for him hard without even really knowing him, like an idiot. Almost every time he saw Richie over the summer, he was wearing thick glasses and that stupid mustard-yellow arcade uniform, and Eddie _still_ fell for him. He was nice and made Eddie feel like he was special and…

Well, clearly that was all one big lie.

So many lies, Eddie’s realizing. Like how Richie acted like it was his first time, too. He pulled that one off perfectly—was extremely convincing, in fact—but based on the stories Eddie’s already heard, that was obviously just a well-practiced line. He’s actually shocked by how many people have brought up “Trashmouth” Tozier this week alone, always within a breath of what a sleaze he is. It makes Eddie squirm to recall that _he_ was the one who suggested they have sex in the first place, practically begged for it. That must have been a real fucking joke to Richie. Real chuckalicious. And that’s not even the worst part.

The worst part of it is that Eddie still wants him.

Wants him even more now, arguably, because he would never admit it, but the whole bad boy thing is really doing it for him. Makes him want to crack that exterior, grip Richie’s jaw in his hand and rock his hips against him and smash that bad boy mask to bits until Richie’s just as bare and raw as he was under the boardwalk that night.

Eddie glances over to the parking lot. Richie has an arm slung easily around that redheaded girl (Beverly Marsh, according to Ben), is talking close into her ear, toying with the flowy kerchief knotted around her neck. Jealousy twists in Eddie’s gut at the same time as heat spikes a little lower. He knows what it’s like to have Richie whispering in his ear, lips brushing his neck.

Eddie’s barely aware of it when the game ends. Next to him, Ben stands, and Eddie realizes belatedly that he ought to, too. He follows Ben out of the bleachers, filing down with the crowd, until they come to the base of them and then Myra giddily launches herself at him.

“We won, we won!” she exclaims into his ear, her pom-poms hanging from her hands over his back.

Eddie hugs her back lightly. “Congrats,” he says, not knowing what else to say. She pulls back and smiles up into his face. His stomach drops when her eyes flick to his mouth.

Then a familiar voice says: “Yeah. Our boys in red really couldn’t have done it without you gals shaking your… pom-poms.”

Eddie stomach flips, his veins zinging.

Myra turns, her arms still draped over Eddie’s shoulders. Her face twists into a sneer. “Ugh, it’s the _Losers_ ,” she drawls.

Eddie turns with her, reluctant and yet dying to allow his eyes to meet Richie’s. He drags his along the ground, up his scuffed black high-tops, long lanky legs, tight black shirt, clean-shaven jaw to— Eddie twitches. Richie’s eyes are dark and fixed on him and Myra, the skin around them tight and braced. Something pleased and ugly burns in Eddie’s chest.

Beside Richie, Beverly grins, her tongue between her teeth. “Good to see you, too, Miss Suck-Cocks.”

“ _Sim_ cox.”

Beverly raises an eyebrow at her, pointedly taking in the way Myra’s arms are still wrapped around Eddie. “Sure about that?”

Myra lets out an angry hiss and withdraws her arms from Eddie’s neck. He feels like he can breathe again. “Ugh, I don’t have to listen to this filth,” she says. “Some of us were raised on the right side of the tracks.”

“Myra,” says Ben, a note of warning in his voice that Eddie didn’t know Ben was capable of.

But Myra only huffs. “Come on, Eddie, let’s go to the malt shop with the girls.” She takes his hand and begins to tug.

Eddie resists, just a bit, and it’s enough to have Myra staring at him in shock. “I mean… I told Ben I’d hang out with him after the game…”

_“Eddie_ ,” she says again, and it has an edge to it. An edge that reminds him that he’s supposed to be going steady with _her_ , that he’s not supposed to be ditching her, especially not for the chance of getting in Richie Tozier’s too-tight pants. That he’s not like Richie Tozier. He’s a good guy who doesn’t think only with his dick.

He is.

“You’re right,” he mumbles finally. He shoots a rueful look towards Ben, ignoring how Richie’s eyes are heavy on him, piercing and black in the dark of night. The way he remembers them. “Sorry, Ben,” he sighs. “I’ll catch up with you guys next time.”

And he allows Myra to pull him away.

***

Richie’s mood is improving with every pull he takes straight from the bottle of vodka when Bev hands it over. After Myra Simcox tugged Eddie away from them, Richie had compulsively lit up another cigarette while Bev coyly cajoled Ben into sticking around. Now Bill’s car is parked next to Ben Hanscom’s neat Ford and Mike Hanlon’s rusty pickup at one end of the scenic overlook where most of their high school goes to neck and get blitzed.

Tonight, Richie is dedicated to the latter, although it looks like Beverly is angling toward the former, the way she’s falling over into Ben’s lap.

Honestly, Richie’s surprised by Ben. He always figured him for kind of a goodie-goodie, but he’s knocking back the vodka like a champ, making Beverly giggle with delight when he barely sputters at the taste. Richie watches in amusement as she takes a long drag of her cigarette and removes it from her mouth to place in Ben’s, blowing smoke into his face just before she rubs her nose across his, grinning at him like he’s her new toy. Ben coughs a bit but Richie’s not sure if it’s from the smoke or Beverly’s closeness.

“No petting in my c-car, Bev,” Bill says loudly. “It still has stains in it from last time.”

“You’re such a prude, Bill,” Bev scoffs back at him, shoving him lightly.

“Stains?” asks Stanley, in that quiet, austere way he has that shoots tingles down Richie’s spine. He’s been drinking just as much as the rest of them but is barely relaxed, just has one arm draped over the backseat of Mike’s car. Mike himself has his ass on the trunk near Stan’s elbow, leaning back on one hand as he sips the beer his dad brewed, his feet on the leather bench seat.

“Yeah, _Stain_ ley,” Richie says, grinning lasciviously. “From _come_.”

Stanley gives him no visible reaction, only drawls, “You have all the subtlety of a wrecking ball, Trashmouth,” and it’s the kind of comment that makes Richie want to be alone with him again.

“It wasn’t from come, Richie,” Bev says, rolling her eyes. “It was red wine.”

“Oh, is that what it was?” Bill grins. “I thought it was because your Aunt Flo was in tuh-town.”

Bev kicks Bill’s back so hard his face hits the back of the front seat. The rest of them laugh.

“And I thought they called you Red because of your hair,” Mike teases, nearly making Richie fall out of the car, he tips over so far laughing.

“Mike gets off a good one!”

Bev sneers at them. “Yeah, yeah, go on, laugh, you bunch of virgins. I have more experience in my little finger than all of you do put together.”

Richie lets out an indignant noise. “Please! I just told you the other day all about the raunchy summer I had!”

Ben blinks at him, his eyes coming back a little from the overwhelmed haze of Bev’s nearness. “Oh, yeah, Richie, I forgot to ask,” he says. “What happened with you and Eddie?”

“Who’s Eddie?” asks Mike.

“The new kid,” says Bev. She lays her head in Ben’s lap and sticks out her tongue in disgust. “He’s dating Little Miss Muffet.”

Mike frowns for a second, then chuckles. “Myra Simcox.”

Bev laughs in delight at Mike’s conclusion, arches across Ben’s thighs to give Mike an upside-down high five.

Richie reaches for the bottle from Bill, taking a big swig and trying not to wince. “Why d’you ask, Haystack? He talking shit about me?”

“Not exactly.”

“He said you guys were friends,” says Stan, his tone calculated. “Said you were a really good guy.”

Bev and Bill crack up. Richie tries not to let his heart ache with guilt. He plasters on a grin. “Sure he was talking about me?”

“That’s what I was wondering,” Stan says steadily, not averting his gaze.

Richie looks away. He shrugs. “Guess we mighta crossed paths. Don’t really remember.”

“Seemed like you recognized him,” says Stan. “You said his name.”

“Yeah, maybe.” Richie’s leg starts bouncing. He tries to stifle it. “You know, now that I’m thinkin’ about it, I do think I recognized him. Yeah, he was a nice kid. Saw him around the arcade.” His knee is jumping again so he kicks it out long, props up his foot on the shoulder of the front seat. “Wasn’t like we went to war together.”

“He’s gotta be the pits if he’s dating _Myra Simcox_ ,” Beverly breaks in, loud and peevish. “God, could you imagine being lassoed to that party pooper?” She sits up and simpers, twirls a finger around her hair. “Look at me, I’m Sandra Dee. I’m saving myself for marriage because I’m a _good girl_.”

Richie laughs a little too hard at that, grateful for the change of topic. The laughter only eggs on Beverly; she goes into a full routine, pretending to be scandalized by the boys surrounding her, the vodka that Bill passes back to her, the cigarette in her own mouth, until Richie is in stitches.

“She can take a long walk off a short pier, as far as I’m concerned,” Beverly finally says, plopping back down beside Ben. “She’s been jealous of me for years, just because I’m gonna get my kicks while I’m still young enough to get ’em.” And as though she’s proving her point, she reaches over to fist her hand in Ben’s shirt and yanks him forward against her mouth, kissing him hard and sloppy as he tries to keep up.

And Richie knows that’s his cue to make himself scarce. Once Bev gets distracted, they’ve got a long night ahead of them. Unfortunately, he’s not got a lot of options, drunk off his ass and without a car. He tells the others he’s gonna take a piss and wanders off into the trees, in search of the little clearing he knows is there.

He finds it within minutes, and it’s mercifully empty. Most of his classmates don’t bother coming this far out, not when the backseat of a car is good enough for a little rub-rub-rub over the clothes. But Richie sometimes finds himself wanting room to breathe, never more so than now.

There’s a fallen tree here, so he sits. Its bark is harsh on his ass through his pants, but it’s a dull pain with the booze. He takes a drag and blows smoke up at the sky, staring. Remembering that the last time he stared at the stars like this, Eddie was tucked under his arm and they were looking through the slats in the boardwalk together.

That was the last time he kissed Eddie.

He clenches his hands on the trunk of the tree, thinking of Myra leaning her smooth, pink face close to Eddie’s, like it belonged there. It stung. He had to say something, had to cut with his words. Knew that he could move aside afterwards, watch it unfurl while Bev stepped in to take over, with her longstanding hatred of Myra.

Watch Eddie.

There’s something so _different_ about seeing Eddie in school. On the beach, in the arcade, he knew Eddie was a little bit of a goodie two-shoes. He was cute, sure—cute in a way that Richie’s usually uncomfortable admitting he’s noticed—but his haircut, his clothes, everything about him practically _screamed_ “drip.” Then one day while Richie was wiping down the prize counter, he saw Eddie nearly blow his top at the claw machine when he tried for the same stuffed turtle for the fifth time, and Richie couldn’t help it. He’d stepped out from behind the counter, leaned his arm on the machine, smiled down at him, and—

That was it. Stars. Fireworks. Richie’s heart in his throat when Eddie’s angry brown eyes met his, then startled and softened at his closeness.

“Can I help, Short Stack?” Richie had asked.

Eddie had turned back toward the machine, color high in his cheeks. “Thing doesn’t work,” he’d mumbled, frowning.

“Actually, I think the problem is it works _too_ well,” Richie’d said, patting the machine proprietarily. He’d smiled mischievously down at Eddie. “But I’ve been dying to rough it up. Whaddaya say?”

They’d roughed it up, all right. Roughed up each other, hands in hair and under shirts within mere days. The first time Richie kissed Eddie was in the back room, where they kept the extra prizes. Richie’s forearms bracketed Eddie’s head against the door while Eddie gripped his uniform shirt and smudged his specs and kissed him back sloppily, not at all like they do in the movies. Better than they do in the movies. And Eddie had made this _noise_ , this sighing, whining noise that set Richie’s blood on fire, and that was when he knew that he was hopelessly devoted to this guy.

He still is.

But things were simpler on the beach. Richie didn’t have a reputation to uphold. No one knew him there; he was just the guy in the ugly shirt and big glasses behind the prize counter. He’d got the job because he could talk to kids, for crying out loud. Here, people know who he is—or, at least, who he tries to be. He’s Trashmouth. He’s a Bruiser. He’s a cool cat who drinks and smokes and dances to rock ’n’ roll and suffers through contact lenses that hurt his eyes because only squares wear glasses and—

“Thought I’d find you here.”

And then there’s Stanley.

Richie jerks belatedly at the voice, the booze slowing his reflexes. He lifts his chin in greeting as Stan walks over.

“Take a load off, Stanley,” Richie says, gesturing magnanimously to the trunk beside him. “But just so you know, I’m not really in the mood.”

Stan raises an eyebrow. “For what?” he asks.

Making Richie _say it_.

He buys himself time by taking a long drag. Letting it out. Finally, he lands on: “To make even more of a fool of myself than I already have.”

Stan pulls his own pack of cigarettes out of his jacket pocket, takes one out with just his lips in the way that Richie has hungrily watched him do countless times. “Coulda sworn you were always in the mood for that,” he says easily.

Richie laughs cheerlessly. He flicks on his lighter and lights Stan’s cigarette for him, not even thinking about it.

“Thanks.”

“No problem.”

Stan leans back on a hand, smoke trailing from his mouth. “And just so you know, neither am I,” he says. “For the record.”

Richie laughs again. “Was it not good enough for you, Stanley?” he asks, a little too harsh. A little too bitter.

“I’d just rather it be with someone who’s not gonna freak out and throw up after a little heavy petting over the pants.”

“Well, if it makes you feel better, I think my throwing up days are over.”

Stanley does not look surprised in the slightest. “With the new kid.”

It’s not a question, so Richie doesn’t feel the need to answer.

“Like I said,” Stan drawls after a moment, smoke swirling, “you have all the subtlety of a wrecking ball, Trashmouth.”

***

It’s not until almost a full month later that Eddie does finally make his way to the Rydell High garage. He meant to, but time got away from him a little, what with classes and homework and track practice and pretending not to notice how Richie Tozier stares at him from across the malt shop every time Eddie’s there with Myra.

From what Ben has told him, the jacket that Stan always wears is because he’s been part of the afterschool garage pit crew for basically his whole high school career. Mike, too, a guy who Eddie has seen around school and at football practice while Eddie’s on the track. A guy who Eddie finds just as intimidating as Stan but for completely different reasons.

When Eddie arrives in the garage and huffs out a cautious _hello_ , Mike wheels out from under a car. Grease is smeared on his dark forehead and the arms of his jumpsuit tied around his thick waist. Eddie feels his pulse begin to race, his eyes snagging on stretching fabric, lean muscles. Then Mike smiles broadly and stands up and… _keeps standing_ until Eddie has to nearly crane his neck to look him in the eye, and…

It’s a lot. Because the way his heart is jumping at Mike’s height and his shoulders and his beard might mean that maybe it’s not just—

“Hey, you must be Eddie,” Mike says warmly, wiping his hands on the rag hanging from his pocket. “I heard you might be stopping by the garage at some point.”

“Y-yeah,” says Eddie, fighting a blush. “I just moved here, and Stan said that you might be able to use some extra help.”

Mike grins. “Yeah, of course! Anyone’s welcome. You’ll wanna talk to Mrs. Murdock about the Rydell cars, but I’m working on this P.O.S. right here—” He pats the hood of the car beside him. “—for a buddy, and I could use all the help I can get.”

Eddie nods, smiling. “Yeah. Sure. Great.” He realizes he sounds like an idiot so he shuts up.

“Great,” Mike echoes, and leans away to climb back onto the creeper. “Oh, actually,” he says, as though it’s just coming to him as he slides back under the car, “I heard you might know the guy. Richie Tozier?”

Eddie’s heart thuds loudly in his ribs. “Richie Tozier? This is Richie Tozier’s car?”

“Yeah, I thought I heard you guys knew each other.”

_Biblically_ , his brain supplies unhelpfully. “We know _of_ each other…” he says carefully, fiddling with a wrench as he runs his eyes over the hood.

Mike wasn’t kidding when he said it was a piece of shit. It’s beat to hell, the convertible top nearly shredded, the upholstery ripped. And that’s just the outside. He doesn’t wanna know how it looks underneath.

Well, he kinda does. His fingers are itching to dig into the gears.

“Mind if I look under the hood?” he asks, trying to be as casual as he can.

“Be my guest. Car doesn’t belong to the school, so we’re really just putzing around here. Extra jumpsuits in the closet over there.” Mike stretches out a leg and points with his foot toward a dresser at the back of the shop. Eddie slides into a suit eagerly and joins him.

Time gets away from Eddie here, too, but in a wonderful way. In a way he hasn’t experienced since long hours slipped through his fingers like sand while he and Richie kissed under the boardwalk, sliding effortlessly from lazy to heated and back again, letting the ocean swallow the noises they made into each other’s mouths. Those days, he sometimes felt like he’d been hypnotized, lulled by the glide of Richie’s tongue over his, Richie’s palms on his bare thighs below his swim shorts. He’d close his eyes on the sun and open them on the stars, his hands buried in Richie’s hair, Richie’s hands buried between his legs.

It might be why he startles so badly when a voice other than Mike’s pipes up, “Well, look who we have here.”

Eddie jerks his head up so quickly it slams against the propped hood, and he sees stars. He clasps a hand to the back of his head. “Ah— Jesus, _fuck_ —”

“Shit, Eds, you all right?” And suddenly there’s a hand on his upper back, other fingers in his hair, another smell in his nose aside from oil and metal. Smoke and leather and something artificially sweet, like chewing gum, and with his eyes closed and head rattling, Eddie wants to bury his nose in it.

He shrugs Richie’s hand off him, leaning out of his touch to scowl up at him, squinting through the pain. “Yeah, yeah, I’m fine.”

“Gosh, Eddie, are you okay? What happened?” Mike asks, wheeling out from under the car with a look of concern on his face. Richie glances at him and then backs off, and it’s almost like Eddie can _see_ him directing the muscles of his face to relax, to set into the mask of apathy that he’s almost always wearing around school.

“Yeah, I’m pretty good,” Eddie says through gritted teeth, rubbing over the tender part of his head. “Just surprised, was all.”

When Mike looks at him, Richie shrugs. “New kid scares easy.”

Mike lifts an eyebrow but doesn’t respond, only glances at the clock on the wall. “Jeez, it’s that late already? I oughta be getting home for supper. Eddie, sorry, but I gotta close up the garage since you’re not on the roll sheet. You mind?”

“Not at all,” Eddie lies again. He had really been enjoying working on the car, even if it was Richie’s.

(Because it was Richie’s.)

“Cool. I gotta take all the tools back to Mrs. M’s office and do inventory, but feel free to get cleaned up until I have to close the doors.” Mike gathers the tools they were using, tosses them in the metal box, and hefts them effortlessly, his bicep bulging against the white of his t-shirt, as he disappears into the back.

Richie snorts.

Eddie turns to look at him. “And what is so funny?”

“Nothing,” says Richie, leaning against the workbench and crossing his arms. “Just wondering what your girl would think if she knew you were checking out Red-Hot Hanlon.”

Eddie whips his head back around, bristling at the same time as he feels his face redden. He wants to retort but nothing is coming to him. He focuses on wiping his hands off on the grease rag.

“ _Well_ ,” Richie goes on, lengthening the sounds with a cruel delight, “what she doesn’t know won’t hurt her. Right, Eds?”

Eddie glances up at him, frowning deeply. “What do you want, Richie?”

Richie lifts his shoulders with an innocent smile and lets them drop. “Just wanted to check on my baby.”

Heat rushes through Eddie’s body. “W-wha—”

“The car?” Richie says, like it’s obvious. His smile twists with pleasure.

“Oh.” Eddie fights down the stupid blush that’s lighting up his cheeks. He swallows and throws the rag down onto the table, a little hard perhaps. “You know, I… I didn’t even know you liked cars.”

“Right back atcha.”

“Yeah. Guess there was a lot we didn’t know about each other.”

“Guess so.” Eddie hears Richie push off the workbench and step across the concrete floor until he’s standing next to Eddie at the hood of the car, leaning his hand on the top of the headlight, his body angled toward Eddie’s. “So, whaddaya think?” he asks with a grin. “She’s pretty sweet, huh?”

“It’s a piece of shit.”

Richie barks out a laugh so loud it seems to startle both of them. They look at each other, eyes wide and hesitant, and then Eddie can’t stifle a chuckle, and a soft smile breaks out on Richie’s face, and suddenly the sun is out, the waves are crashing in Eddie’s chest.

It’s summer again.

Richie hums, smiling quietly down at the open hood. “You know, I think this car could be… automatic.”

Eddie shrugs. “Yeah, I think that’s what Mike’s putting in.”

“Mm.” Richie taps his thumb against the body. “Systematic.”

“Sure?”

“ _Hydra-_ Matic.”

A smile is starting to tug at Eddie’s mouth. “That would cost you.”

“Laundromatic.”

Eddie bursts out laughing. It takes him by surprise, makes him want to hide his face. He swipes the back of his hand across his forehead, pushing his hair out of the way, shaking his head at Richie. “You’re a laugh, Rich,” he says, all naked fondness.

When he looks up, Richie is looking back at him, and his eyes are clear and shining. “Eds,” he says, his voice low and meaningful, coiling hot in Eddie’s stomach.

Eddie licks his lips, looks away. “Don’t call me that.”

“Sorry.” Richie takes a breath that has Eddie looking back at him almost immediately. He looks like he’s struggling. “Eddie, I’ve been wanting to talk to you for a long time.”

Eddie swallows, beginning to feel awkward. “About what?”

“The first day of school.” Richie’s looking down at the car, fiddling with the cap for the brake fluid. “The way I acted, that was terrible. That wasn’t me, you gotta know that. I mean, it _was_ me, but it wasn’t, you know? See, I’ve got this image…”

Eddie darts his eyes over Richie, taking him in. The leather jacket, the tight black jeans, the greased-up duck-butt hair. Eddie remembers seeing it shaggy and falling in Richie’s face, wet with saltwater and crusted in sand.

“No shit you’ve got an image, Richie,” he says impatiently. “So do I.”

“Tell me about it.” Richie snorts. “Why else would you be going steady with Myra Simcox.”

At that, Eddie feels his hackles start to rise. Like he’s only going out with Myra because of the _image_. Like he’s doing it to be just as dumb as Richie’s whole… _everything_.

And it’s stupid. Because he _doesn’t_ care all that much about going steady with Myra, it’s just _the thing to do_. And there’s nothing _wrong_ with Myra. Sure, maybe she’s a little stubborn, a little set in her ways, a little bratty, but Eddie sees those same qualities in himself. In his ma, who he… well, he loves her, good and bad. It would be hypocritical of him to dislike Myra for them.

“At least Myra never lied to me about who she is,” he says, just a tad heated.

Richie’s eyebrows shoot up. “Come again?”

“You heard me.” Eddie feels the fire rising in his veins, his shoulders going stiff. “What exactly was that act you put on this summer? ‘Aw, shucks, I just like ya, Eds. Will we ever see each other again?’ What was that _image_? What the hell was the point of _that_?”

“ _Hey_.” Richie’s straightening up now, attempting to slot his mask back into place but his anger is showing through. “I could ask you the same thing, _Mr. Simcox_. Which one of us was begging to fuck? Who was that? Refresh my memory. Because it sure as hell wasn’t me.”

Eddie can feel his eyebrows knotting together over his eyes. He squares up his body, nearly snarling. “Fuck off, Richie.”

“‘Fuck off’,” Richie scoffs, taking a step closer. “You mean like you were supposed to? Back to _Maine_. Was that even the truth or were you just too chickenshit to tell me to get lost? Like you are with _Myra_?”

Eddie feels his chest swelling with angry breath, bulling his way forward, not giving any ground. “Leave her out of this.”

Richie steps closer again, so close. “Oh, I’d love to leave her out of this. You certainly left her out of it all summer, when your mouth was practically glued to my cock.”

And Eddie’s mouth drops open in shock and rage, because of _course_ Richie would be this mean, this lewd, this… _this_ —!

And Eddie’s fingers are scrabbling at Richie’s belt buckle, and Richie’s mouth is crushed against his, tongues sliding, breaths hot and angry and angry and so fucking angry fuck _fuck fuck belts fuck real pants get them the fuck OFF_ —

Eddie shoves Richie back, and Richie stumbles, has one second in which he pants, staring at Eddie in surprise, confusion, his lips already bitten red, before Eddie is on him again, mouth desperate, hands pushing him roughly against the side of the car, furiously yanking his black t-shirt out from his pants, pressing his palms over his skin. It feels cooler, less textured, not dotted with sand. Eddie hates it. He can’t get enough of it.

“God, Eds, missed you,” Richie breathes against his mouth. “Missed you so much.”

Eddie’s hands are back to working that fucking belt buckle. “Wanna suck your dick,” he pants back.

“Fuck, yeah, yeah, please. God, your _mouth_ —”

The lights go out.

Eddie freezes, and Richie goes still under his palms. His heart is in his throat. He’s not sure if either of them breathes.

Mike’s voice comes out of the darkness. “It’s a good thing the lights are out,” he says loudly, “so I couldn’t see anything. Since Mrs. M has been _extremely_ clear that the garage is not for hanky-panky.”

Neither of them moves a muscle. Not a fucking muscle.

“I think I forgot something in the office,” Mike goes on, just as loud. “And when I come back, I have to lock up. And anyone who’s still here should probably be gone by then. Just… yeah.”

The sliver of light that is the door to the office widens, and Eddie turns his head to watch Mike slip back through it. As soon as it closes, he leaps back from Richie, searching in the near-blackness for his things.

“Fuck,” Eddie mutters, heart racing, feeling like his eyes are rolling in his head in the disorienting dark. Finally he lays hands on his bookbag and slings it over his shoulder, frantic to get out. “ _Fuck_.”

“My hair,” Richie says in the darkness, half-laughing. “You messed up my hair.”

But that’s the last thing Eddie hears because he’s disappeared into the night, legs pumping to carry him and his flagging erection as far away from the garage and Richie fucking Tozier as they can.

***

Richie doesn’t see much of Eddie for months.

Summer ends in earnest, and the air grows cold. The first big school dance is fast approaching, an event that Richie, Bev, and Bill usually take as an opportunity to spike the punch and get loaded. There’s something different about it this year, though, something that makes Richie want to go to it in earnest, really show off. Maybe it’s remembering how hot Eddie’s mouth was on his, how frenzied his fingers were on the buckle of his belt, how he breathed _I wanna suck your dick_ right down Richie’s throat. Maybe it’s just knowing that Eddie still _wants_ , the same way that Richie does.

Or maybe it’s how, when Richie catches sight of Myra walking around with Eddie’s dumb old high school letterman jacket draped over her shoulders, something vindictive spikes in his stomach.

He flicks away the butt of his cigarette sourly, eyes still trained on Myra in that stupid blue jacket, and asks loudly, “Hey, Bev, wanna go to the dance?”

“Pfft, not with you,” Bev says, popping her gum. “Ben’s gonna ask me.”

Richie nods. “Ah, I got it. Well, that sounds nice, but let me know if you change your mind and actually wanna win a dance contest on live TV—”

Bev sits up almost comically fast. “Dance contest? On live TV?”

“That’s what they’re saying. Supposedly Vince Fontaine is gonna be there—”

“Oh my god, _Vince Fontaine_?” Bev’s eyes are unfurling into stars. “And whoever wins gets on TV?”

“That’s what I heard.”

“Shit.” Bev falls back to lie on the bleachers. “Well, I hope Ben doesn’t mind if I dance with you the whole night.”

That’s how Richie finds himself striding in through the doors of the gymnasium wearing a black, rented suit over a pink, open-collared shirt, flanked on either side by Bill, in a gray striped suit, and Bev, in a ruffled flamenco-style dress clearly designed to be danced in. Ben is on Bev’s other side, his arm draped over her and looking like he feels a little out of place next to the others.

He probably doesn’t feel half as out of place as Richie feels.

Because Richie is here to try his best at something. Richie never tries his best at _anything_ anymore. At least, not since he tried his best to make it good for Eddie.

Based on how Eddie kissed him in the garage, he thinks he probably succeeded.

He finds himself scanning the crowd. His eyes catch on Stanley and Mike, leaning against the wall with the other single guys, although they seem to be perfectly fine talking only to each other.

Then his gaze lands on them. Eddie and Myra. Dancing to “Hound Dog” like they’re at a church fundraiser, arms stiff and holding each other far apart. Myra’s in a nauseatingly sweet white dress, like it’s her wedding day, and Eddie’s wearing a white dinner jacket over black slacks that look like he just took whatever was left in the rental store. Myra’s mouth is moving, and Eddie has a look of feigned interest, because he’s never been able to conceal his true feelings a day in his life, not really.

Not like Richie can, anyway.

Eddie must feel Richie’s eyes on him, because he glances away from Myra, and their eyes lock, and—

That’s it. Stars. Fireworks. Just like the first time.

_You ain’t nothin’ but a hound dog_.

Richie lifts his chin and smirks. He flicks his jacket open to show off the line of his shirt, slides a hand into his pants pocket to emphasize the cut of his hips in his pants. Decides it’s not overkill to wink when the guy literally told him he wants to suck his dick.

_They said you was high-classed. Well, that was just a lie._

To his surprise, Eddie doesn’t flush and look away. Instead, Eddie runs his eyes slowly over Richie’s body, head to toe and back to Richie’s eyes, which he holds in his. Throughout, he simply continues to dance nonchalantly with Myra, quirking an eyebrow over her shoulder. Richie’s veins flood with heat.

_You ain’t never caught a rabbit and you ain’t no friend of mine._

So they’re being cool about it, huh? Well, they both know who’ll win at that game.

***

Eddie does not want to be in a dance contest, but Myra does. So he tries his best, like always. He leads and he spins and he even dips a couple times, and he only steps on her feet once, when he catches a glimpse of Richie leaning back steeply, Beverly Marsh’s ass plastered to his front with his arms under hers while they hand-jive, smiling and barely breaking a sweat.

Myra squawks at him for that, and he apologizes and tries harder to ignore how Richie braces Bev with a forearm as she wraps her legs around his middle, laughing as they spin.

“Ugh,” Myra scoffs in his ear, “I thought Principal McGee said no lewd dancing. Typical _Losers_. C’mon, Eddie, we can’t let them win or I’ll just scream.”

So Eddie keeps trying his best. And he does all right for a while. But then Bev rustles her dress around her dark, tight-clad thighs while she shoves her silver high heel in Richie’s face, and Richie holds it there, makes a face like he’s loving it as he lowers himself into splits in time with the beat.

Eddie fucking stumbles.

He and Myra get tapped out shortly afterwards.

Myra flounces off the dance floor with a huff, dragging Eddie behind her. Eddie, his brain hazy with the image of Richie on the floor, hair mussed, looks back over his shoulder just in time to catch Richie’s eye. Richie winks _again_ , his hair falling in his face, and Eddie whips his head back around.

Richie and Beverly win the dance contest. Of course they do. They were skillful and exuberant and—Eddie thinks with a bitter swallow while they take their couple’s dance to “Blue Moon”—fucking hot. Way too hot. Eddie had no idea Richie could dance like this.

When Eddie straddled Richie under the boardwalk and sank down on him and rocked against him, Richie didn’t do a lot of moving; they’d agreed Eddie should set the pace, do what was comfortable for him. Now Eddie wonders what it would have been like to have those hips snapping up into him. To have their positions reversed, if Richie had been the one taking him in.

Eddie is grateful it’s so dark in the gym, to say the least.

And then it goes even darker because someone runs in front of the camera and drops trou right there on live television, bringing new meaning to the song’s lyrics. Myra shrieks next to him. The spotlight flips off, casting the entire gym in pitch darkness.

Bodies are suddenly pushing against him, everyone in a frenzy of movement, and Eddie jerks his head, trying to catch a glimpse of anything in the blackness.

Then a rough hand is on his wrist, pulling him forward. A low voice hisses, “Eds?”

“Yeah?” he breathes back, blood roaring in his ears.

“Good,” and Richie’s hand slides up over his jaw and yanks him against him.

It’s still pitch black, so their mouths are off at first. Richie’s half-kissing Eddie’s upper lip, and Eddie’s front teeth clack against Richie’s bottom ones, but then they shift and their tongues meet and tangle and Eddie faintly hears Myra’s voice calling, _Eddie? Eddie, where are you?_ but he doesn’t stop. Richie’s hands are sliding down his chest, cupping roughly around where he’s half-hard in his slacks and Eddie whines under his breath and there are people all around them but no one knows in the dark that Richie Tozier’s grinding the heel of his palm against his dick, kissing him ruthlessly on live, pitch-black television.

Then, cruelly, Richie pulls back, Eddie’s mouth hazily chasing his. Richie’s fingers stroke the hair behind his ears, their foreheads pressed together.

Up close, Richie whispers, “I wish it coulda been you, Eds,” and Eddie’s not sure what he means by it, but his heart clenches in his chest.

“See a movie with me,” Eddie blurts out, unable to help himself.

Richie kisses him again, and Eddie can feel him smiling. It makes him smile, too.

“I thought you’d never ask.”

***

Richie and Eddie never saw a movie together over the summer, although they talked about it. It was just more convenient to take advantage of an empty beach at night rather than ask to borrow Richie’s dad’s car, park among a crowd of others who could easily see, and, not to mention, have to _pay_.

To be honest, Richie would have been happy to pay for them. Would have been happy to post up to watch the movie with Eddie, throw popcorn at the screen, hold hands, kiss only when it looked like no one was looking. Maybe jerk each other off under a towel, if they were feeling really frisky. It would have been nice to act a little more like they were going steady, rather than just… whatever they were.

Hopelessly devoted, is what Richie is. Was.

_Was_.

It takes a while for the stars to align for them to go to the drive-in. First, they have to wait for the winter chill to leave the air; then, they have to wait for the rush of teenagers flooding the newly reopened drive-in theater to slow to a trickle. Richie wants to make sure it’s a night that none of the other Bruisers or the Red-Hots are planning to go, and Eddie… has Myra.

Eddie’s still going with Myra.

It’s been months now. Months of seeing them in the malt shop. Months of them sitting together at lunch, chatting with each other by the field. Months of Myra wearing Eddie’s dumb old letterman jacket and for some reason it gets Richie’s blood boiling every time he sees it.

Meanwhile, Richie’s never had a relationship that lasted longer than two weeks. Unless you count Eddie.

Should he count Eddie?

Going into the night they’re planning to see the movie, Richie’s nervous. They’ve barely spoken more than a few words to each other in the months since the dance contest, their only contact stolen snatches of conversation, secret caresses in the hallway blocked from sight by their own bodies. More often than not these days, Richie finds himself jerking it to a remembered squeeze of Eddie’s ass in the garage, or the rough drag of Eddie’s wrist over his crotch by the lockers. He feels like a Victorian maiden. A particularly slutty one.

Then there was the time that he came across Eddie and Myra sitting on the bleachers after Eddie’s track practice. Richie had been under them smoking, waiting for Bill to get done with the endless detention he earned for mooning the whole of America at the dance contest, when he heard Myra’s voice, looked up, and caught an eyeful straight up Eddie’s little track shorts, the stark line of briefs against skin.

On an unrelated note, under the bleachers during track practice is now one of Richie’s favorite places to smoke.

It was there that Eddie found him to ask him out to the drive-in for real. He was still in his tiny track shorts, and Richie almost wanted to ask him to wear them to the movie, but he didn’t want to push his luck. The stars had aligned. The fireworks could go off. They were cleared for landing.

Except Richie’s car still wasn’t done.

He really couldn’t blame Mike for it, since Mike was fixing it up totally free of charge and in his spare time. At this point, it was more of an excuse for Richie to stop by the garage to see if Eddie was there—or to chat with Mike or even Stanley if he wasn’t—than an actual mode of transport. Richie would be lying if he said he had never been grateful for just how long it was taking to work on, especially when Eddie was often the one working on it.

Now he’s realized the error of his ways.

Eddie doesn’t seem too fazed, though. Obviously, he knows Richie’s not gonna be able to take his car; he knows the thing better than Richie does. He just tells Richie to meet him down the road from school after it gets dark, and when Eddie pulls up in a silver Volkswagen that smells like mothballs and has a solid, immoveable roof—basically, Squaresville on wheels—Richie just counts his blessings and gets in.

When Eddie pulls away from the curb with little more than a quick _hey_ , Richie turns to him with a smirk. “What, no kiss?”

“Depends on where we park,” Eddie shoots back, the ghost of a smile on his lips.

Richie grins. “I know a place.”

Richie has given a lot of thought to where they should park. It’s not enough to park in the spots most of their classmates choose when they want to get it on in relative privacy, because everyone in school knows those spots. But obviously they don’t wanna park among the grannies or curtain-climbers, either. Nor can they park apart from the other cars, lest they draw the attention of the coppers that sometimes lurk the drive-in, making sure no one’s filling out their backseat bingo sheet.

So Richie’s pretty proud of the parking spot he’s settled on: at the edge of the designated necking spots, pressed up against heavy brush on one side so they can only be approached from one angle, with a solid view of the screen.

Not that Richie’s able to do much watching, because Eddie came prepared, too.

Once they’re settled, Eddie gives Richie a smug yet evasive look as he leans over the back of the bench seat and drags a big, bulky quilt back over it. It must be clear by Richie’s face just how quickly he grasped the purpose of the blanket, because a sly smile spreads across Eddie’s face.

“I hope this time you didn’t wear that fucking belt,” Eddie says, all heat and false anger.

Richie’s dick twitches in his pants, already more than halfway hard. “Next time I’ll wear a poodle skirt.”

After that, Eddie clambers down into the wheel well, folding himself up between Richie’s knees in a way that can’t possibly be comfortable, but Richie has only a few seconds in which to be concerned before Eddie pulls the blanket over them both. In moments, his fingers are fumbling with Richie’s fly, pulling Richie’s cock free and he wastes no time sliding it into his mouth.

Richie hisses at the warmth, his pulse racing. He scrambles to pull off his leather jacket and throw it in the backseat, his skin already boiling. There’s absolutely no way he’s going to last more than ten minutes, and even that’s a generous estimation. It’s been _months_. It’s been months, and he never thought he’d have this again, Eddie tonguing at the head of his dick, gripping the base in his hand while he sucks it down and swallows around it.

Unable to help himself, Richie slips a hand under the blanket, fingertips searching until they find Eddie’s hair, twisting into it. Richie feels more than hears how Eddie hums at the sensation, his voice vibrating around his cock. Richie groans.

“God, it’s been so long,” he gasps, trying not to grip Eddie’s hair too hard. He knows Eddie doesn’t want Richie to guide him, and Richie doesn’t need to. Eddie knows what he’s doing.

Richie remembers being shocked the first time Eddie’s dark eyes met his in blatant desire, barely straying from his as he left Richie’s lap and lowered himself between Richie’s legs. It was their first time under the boardwalk, they hadn’t even brought a blanket; Eddie just knelt down in the sand, pulled down the elastic of Richie’s swimshorts, and licked a stripe up Richie’s cock, and Richie had seen God.

It had been even more surprising given that it was only a few short days after Richie had given Eddie a bashful rub over his linen shorts in the prize room, half-expecting Eddie to freak out and run away (like Richie had, his first time). But Eddie had only spread his thighs, braced himself against the door, and so Richie kept going. Kept going until Eddie was panting and whining and quickly yanking the waistband down just enough to let the tip of his dick out to avoid staining the crotch when he came all over both of their hands. Richie looked down at the flushed, sticky head of Eddie’s cock, peeking up over his striped shorts, and thought, dizzily: _So pretty_.

He didn’t get to see it a whole lot, though, once Eddie decided he wanted to get intimately acquainted with Richie’s.

Eddie bobs his head under the blanket, and Richie nearly keens, pressure building building building in his gut. God, he knew he wasn’t gonna last. Eddie’s mouth is too good, Eddie’s tongue is too good, _Eddie_ is too good, and Richie bucks his hips and Eddie pins them down and keeps going and Richie’s fit to fucking burst and—

Eddie pulls off.

Richie can’t help the groan of dismay that slips through his lips. His fingernails are scrabbling at Eddie’s hair, trying to pull him back because he’s _so_ close, but Eddie won’t be moved. In fact, Eddie’s shifting the blanket, pulling it over his head until he reveals his own face, looking pleased as hell with himself when he catches sight of Richie. Fuck, he must look a mess.

“What?” Richie asks, breathless.

Eddie smiles at him, his eyes alight. “I was thinking we could try something new.”

Richie swallows hard. Tries to get his bearings. “This is pretty new for us already, wouldn’t you say?”

Eddie only keeps smiling. His hands slide up Richie’s thighs to hook in the waist of his jeans. He tugs at them. “Take these off.”

Richie’s head is still reeling from the _fellatio interrupta_ , but his heart rate jumps even more at the implication. Does Eddie seriously want to…? To _Richie_?

“I-I don’t have anything with me,” he stammers, as he looks around them to make sure the coast is clear.

“I brought Vaseline.”

Richie snorts in disbelief as Eddie pulls the jar out from under the seat. “Jeez Louise, Eds, what’s got into you?” But Richie’s grinning, hooking his thumbs into his pants, shimmying them off of one leg and letting them hang around the ankle of the other.

“You can keep on your underwear, if you want,” says Eddie.

“Oh, _can_ I?”

Eddie pinches his shin, and Richie laughs. “I can just, you know,” Eddie says, gesturing vaguely as he unscrews the lid on the Vaseline, “move it aside.”

“To preserve modesty.”

Eddie laughs. “Yes, exactly. While I finger you at the drive-in.”

“Hey, the girls of Rydell have had their turn. Let the boys have a chance.”

With a grin, Richie props himself up awkwardly against the door and brings a leg up next to him, his thighs spread around Eddie’s shoulders. He slouches down as far as he can, his dick hard and bobbing out from the fly of his briefs.

“Well!” he exclaims, once he’s fully in position, unable stop the Jimmy Stewart voice that comes out. “This is a very interesting situation!”

Eddie cracks up, the skin beside his eyes crinkling. He presses a kiss to the inside of Richie’s thigh, and Richie realizes it’s the first time Eddie’s kissed him tonight. The thought starts a dull ache in his belly.

One that’s quickly forgotten when Eddie’s fingers pull aside the seat of his briefs, and a slick fingertip begins to rub over his hole.

Richie can’t help it: he flinches. No one’s ever touched him there. Hell, he hasn’t even touched _himself_ there. He’s touched Eddie there, though, and that thought must go through Eddie’s head at the same time as it hits Richie, because Eddie’s eyes flick up to his, amused.

“Not so cool and collected now, huh, Trashmouth?”

Richie huffs out a laugh. “Kinda lost my cool when you put your mouth on my dick, if I’m being honest.”

“Good to know that’s the price I have to pay for honesty,” Eddie says with a smirk, and he pulls the blanket back over his head.

The next moment, Richie feels Eddie’s mouth engulf his slightly softened cock, fire zinging in his veins; and then the _next_ moment, Richie feels Eddie’s finger press into him to the first knuckle.

Richie gasps, more from Eddie’s mouth than from his finger, which currently doesn’t feel particularly mind-blowing. Then again, he remembers the first time he fingered Eddie, the squint of uncertainty on his face as though he couldn’t make up his mind if it was worth the trouble. How it made both of them laugh, and Richie could feel Eddie laughing in his _ass_ , and that got both of them laughing uncontrollably, Richie burying his face in Eddie’s sea-salty neck.

He wonders if Eddie is thinking of the same thing. Suddenly, fiercely, he wishes he could see Eddie’s face. Wishes Eddie could see _his_ face. Wishes they could do this without this fucking blanket in the way.

Slowly, Eddie’s finger pushes in, the motion of his mouth on Richie’s dick even slower, drawing it out. Richie squirms a little against Eddie’s finger, and Eddie pauses. He moves the blanket just slightly, just enough to peek out, and asks, “You all right?”

“Yeah, it’s just… _weird_ ,” Richie chuckles. “Right now. I can see where you’re going with it, though.”

Eddie gives him an annoyed look that barely covers a smile. “Just wait,” he says cryptically, and retreats back under the blanket.

This time, when Eddie’s lips slide over the tip of Richie’s cock, he shifts his finger in some way that has a crackle of electricity lancing up Richie’s spine. His hips kick forward, and his dick glances off Eddie’s lips, smearing across his cheek.

“Fuck, fuck, sorry, Eds—” Richie says, but Eddie’s just laughing, looking fucking delighted when Richie scrambles the blanket away from his face. “What… what the fuck?”

“That feel good?” Eddie teases, but before Richie can even answer, he does it _again_. Richie shivers, has to bite down a moan.

When his eyelids flutter open, it’s because Eddie has lifted himself up on his knees and is pulling Richie into a pleased, filthy kiss, all tongue and smiling teeth, his hand fisted in his shirt. Richie kisses back as best he can with his brain turned to mush, and then he’s groaning and panting hard against Eddie’s mouth because Eddie’s _still doing it_ , the thing with his finger, whatever the fuck it is, and it feels so goddamn good, Richie could go off in two sucks of Eddie’s tongue on his cock if he kept it up.

“Eddie,” he groans, as Eddie snakes fingers into his greased hair and yanks his head back to bite at his throat. “Eddie, holy shit. Holy fucking shit.”

“Yeah?” Eddie says, hot breath fanning across his collarbone. “You like it? You want another?”

It takes him a second to realize that Eddie means another finger; his brain is not in this time zone. He licks his lips, trying to imagine what that could feel like. It’s already pretty fucking amazing, but if there’s an option for _even more_ …

Richie’s always been a thrill-seeker.

He shifts on the seat, spreading his legs wider, and he feels Eddie smirk against his neck. Eddie’s finger withdraws and his other hand leaves Richie’s hair to reach under the blanket for the Vaseline. Richie’s barely caught his breath before Eddie’s nuzzling at his neck again, pressing two fingertips against his rim, making Richie’s eyebrows pinch with the stretch.

“Fuck, you’re so tight,” Eddie breathes into his shoulder. “Was I this tight?”

“Think so,” Richie gasps, as Eddie’s fingers twist inside him. His mind is spinning back to the boardwalk, to Eddie riding his fingers, his cock. “Yeah. Yeah, you were— _fuck_ —so tight, felt so good. Was it this good for you when we…? When I…?”

Eddie chuckles against Richie’s neck in a way that makes Richie’s stomach drop. “In parts, yeah,” he says. “But I didn’t know about _this_ —” He punctuates the word with a press of his fingers against that spot, and Richie cries out, feels a spurt of precome sliding down his dick. “—back then. Bet it would be even better now.”

The thought of making Eddie feel as good as Richie feels right now is intoxicating, dizzying. He grips clumsily at Eddie’s hip. “Gimme another chance, Eds,” he breathes. “I’ll fuck you better. I’ll hit the spot, I will.”

“You did last time,” Eddie says into his skin, almost shyly.

Elation rises in Richie’s chest. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. A few times, anyway. That’s why I knew to look.”

“Good,” Richie sighs, unable to process beyond that single, simple word. “Good. Want to make you feel good, Eds.”

Eddie hums in his throat and begins to slide back down between Richie’s thighs. Richie’s fingers clench harder on his hip, trying to keep him close, but Eddie only laughs. “Remember where we are,” he chides him, and Richie lets him go.

They’re not under the boardwalk, after all.

Eddie sinks back down on his knees in the wheel well, pulling the blanket over his head, and Richie takes advantage of the distraction from the overwhelming pleasure to adjust the whole thing so it’s draped over his propped-up knee, providing a little cave for Eddie’s head and torso. When Eddie returns his face to Richie’s cock, Richie can’t even see the outline of him moving beneath the blanket.

It makes him feel a little sad, actually.

Then Eddie closes his lips around his cock for what feels like the millionth time that night, and moves his fingers again in _that way_ , and Richie promptly forgets how to feel anything but _on fire_.

The pressure is building again, quick and overwhelming, but so much _more_. It’s Richie’s whole body, the heat inside him; it’s zinging from his head to his toes and back, lighting him up, taking him over. Eddie’s mouth is hot and sweet and deliciously familiar, and the way his fingers are pressing and sliding and, _fuck_ , spreading him open is new and incredible, breaking him apart and putting him back together and then shattering him all over again and he’s gonna— he’s gonna—

“Ugh, is that Richie Tozier?”

Richie’s eyes fly open. Beneath the blanket, Eddie is frozen solid. Richie slowly turns to look over his shoulder, in the direction of the muffled voice.

Myra Simcox is peering in through the window.

Richie’s blood goes cold. He gives a shaky smirk, but his eyes are hardly focusing when he says through the window glass, “Eh, what’s up, doc?”

Myra huffs, but instead of turning on her heel and flouncing away, she makes the gesture for him to roll down the window. Richie’s heart thuds. _What the fuck? What the fuck could she possibly want?_

“You got a warrant?” he asks weakly.

She only frowns. “I can’t _hear you_ ,” she says, loud but still muffled. “Either roll the window down or open the door.”

And well, opening the door would require Richie to do a lot more maneuvering and would almost certainly reveal that someone (a very compromising someone) is under the blanket with him. And he doesn’t want to tell Myra to piss off, in case she goes to find the watchman, since she’s a snitch like that, so…

Rolling down the window it is.

He rolls it a quarter of the way down and says brightly, “Lovely weather we’re having, isn’t it?”

Myra doesn’t speak, only leans toward the window like she’s Miss Marple on the scent of a murderer. Her face is pinched as her eyes roam the car, catching on the lumps under the blanket: Richie’s knee, his hip. Richie crosses his arms and keeps staring straight at her face, trying desperately not to act as though anything’s amiss, while his heart is attempting to smash its way through his ribcage and leave the fucking country.

In the stretching silence while Myra investigates the scene before her, he realizes with a sudden wash of bubbling bitterness that she’s wearing that _fucking_ letterman jacket. _Still_. The school year is almost over, and she’s still clinging to this stupid status symbol. Clinging to _Eddie’s_ status symbol, from his old school. What a fucking drip she is.

Not to mention that while she’s wearing Eddie’s letterman jacket, Richie can still feel Eddie’s tongue on his cock, his hot breath hitting his briefs, damp with sweat and spit. A sick thrill curls inside him.

Richie licks his lips, letting his smile cement itself on his face. He tries again: “I know I’m easy on the eyes, doll, but the flick is up there.” He nods in the direction of the screen.

Myra glares at him. “I know where the film is playing, _Richard_ , I’m wondering what _you_ are doing seeing _The Ten Commandments_ with Beloved Community Methodist Church.”

And it’s only because Richie has years of practice carefully concealing his honest reactions that he manages not to choke on his own spit.

“It’s a free country, ain’t it?” he says easily, and then gulps. Tries to ignore how Eddie has chosen exactly that moment to swallow around his cock, excess saliva drooling along the shaft where he’s been holding it in his mouth.

“You wanted to see _The Ten Commandments_?” Myra still sounds deeply skeptical.

“Sure!” Richie yelps, too loud, because Eddie’s fingers are moving again. _What the fuck is he_ doing _?_ But Myra’s face flinches at his loudness, so he has to go on, just as loud, like that’s just how he talks at the movies: “Love the Bible! ’Specially the Old Testament. The Old Testament is the Bestament, ’swhat I always say.”

He feels Eddie smile around his cock at that, and so he lets a grin split his face, too. Then Eddie presses his fingers against that spot, _that_ _fucking spot_ , and he’s barely keeping his eyes from going crossed.

Myra sniffs, and then sniffs again, and it takes him a moment to realize that she’s trying to _smell_ something. Like a fucking scent hound.

Richie lifts his chin, baring his neck. “Chanel Pour Monsieur. You like?”

She scowls at him but straightens up from the window. “You don’t smell like booze…”

Richie grits his teeth in what he hopes can be read as a grin, while Eddie slides his lips painstakingly slowly down Richie’s cock until his nose his pressed into his pubic hair and his throat fucking _pulses_. “Like I said,” Richie breathes, and he prays it comes out as exasperation with being questioned rather than barely holding his shit together, “here for the movie.”

And she’s still frowning, but she sounds more confused than suspicious when she says, “It just doesn’t seem like something you’d be into.”

Which is a good point. A very, very good point. But Eddie’s beginning to twist and slide his fingers back inside, while he flexes the back of his throat around the head of Richie’s cock, and Richie needs to get her to leave _now_.

“Yeah, you’re right, Myra,” he admits, rushed. “It doesn’t. Why do you think I’m here alone? I… I’m embarrassed.” He lets his eyes clench shut at the feel of Eddie’s mouth and fingers and hopes it comes across as shame.

“Oh… none of your friends are good Christians?”

“Yeah, they’re real heathens,” Richie says, thinking of one person he knows who’s being particularly sinful, the way he’s swirling his tongue. “I’m trying my best to show them the way, but sometimes I gotta take some time for myself, you know?” And when he cracks an eye open to chance a glimpse of her, he can tell she’s bought it—hook, line, and sinker.

“I… understand,” she says slowly, putting a hand over her heart in feeling. “It’s hard to be among secularists.”

“It sure is.” Richie is gripping the door handle hard enough to crack it, trying desperately not to buck his hips into Eddie’s mouth.

“I’m sorry for doubting you, but—”

“No, I get it. I do- _oooh_ …” Richie tilts his head back, closes his eyes again, tries to play it as the pain of her doubt and not the pleasure of his mounting orgasm.

“Well, I’ll leave you to it, I suppose,” says Myra. “If you ever want to talk about it, let me know.”

“You’re a swell gal, Myra,” Richie says, looking at her through heavy-lidded, unfocused eyes, “but I’d really rather we never speak of this again. I have to keep up my _image_ , you know?” And he gathers the last remaining tendrils of his self-control that Eddie’s mouth and fingers and breath and spit and fire have left him to bare his teeth in his winningest smile.

Her eyebrows twitch as she smiles uncertainly back at him. Then she nods and turns and is she…? She is! She’s walking away, she’s leaving, and Richie’s fingers scramble to roll the window back up before he lets out a groan that he swears shakes the mirrors, teetering on the edge of a sweet, boiling ocean threatening to swallow him up.

Eddie hums inquisitively beneath the blanket, crooking his fingers, and Richie shamelessly bucks his hips, nodding frantically, though Eddie can’t see. “Yeah, she’s gone, you maniac, she’s gone,” he sobs, snaking his hands under the blanket, fisting in Eddie’s hair and following him as his head bobs, swallowing his cock over and over. “God, Eds, fuck, don’t stop, don’t fucking stop, I’m gonna come so fucking hard—”

And Eddie hums again and sucks and _presses_ with his fingers and that’s it that’s fucking _it_ , stars and fireworks and the fucking moon shattering to a billion tiny pieces and Richie’s coming down Eddie’s throat, Eddie’s nose grinding against his stomach, his fingers milking him for everything he’s worth.

It feels like hours before Richie’s body slumps boneless against the car door, his fingers falling from Eddie’s hair. Eddie slowly lifts off his softening cock, slips out his fingers, and pulls back the blanket inch by inch until it reveals his red, breathless face, mussed hair, a filthy smirk like the cat that got the fucking canary. Richie groans at that look, lifts a lazy hand to cover Eddie’s wolfish grin for just a second before his hand falls to his lap again.

Eddie’s voice is low and gravelly when he slyly asks: “How was that?”

“You’re insane,” Richie slurs, incredulous.

Still smiling, Eddie dips his head back down to kiss Richie’s spent cock. Richie groans again, twitching with the overstimulation, and Eddie mercifully pulls away. “That was Myra, huh?”

“Yeah. Did you know about the church thing?”

“I knew there was a church thing, not what the church thing was.” And Eddie’s climbing back up to Richie’s face, his eyes black in the dark. He pauses, lips hovering over Richie’s. “You really are a good liar.”

“Good thing,” Richie says, muffled against Eddie’s mouth. “We should probably get going, though. Don’t wanna be here in case she tries to come back to talk to me some more about our lord and savior.”

“Mm,” Eddie says, and then he rocks his hips against Richie’s thigh, and Richie’s eyes flutter open when he realizes that Eddie is hard as fucking _steel_ in his pants.

“Eds—”

“You took my fingers so good, Rich,” Eddie murmurs, voice rough along Richie’s jaw. “Think you could take my dick, too?”

Against all odds, heat spikes weakly, dazedly, in Richie’s stomach. “Right now?”

Eddie nuzzles his nose against Richie’s ear, nips at his earlobe. “When else?”

His brain is foggy, but it seems like a good point. “I dunno.”

“You liked it right? My fingers in you.”

“Mm, yeah.” Richie drapes his arms around Eddie’s back loosely, letting him kiss his neck, sending shivers down his spine. “So good.”

“Would you like it if it was my cock?”

A shiver of heat. “Yeah.” Eddie’s teeth graze his throat, and he remembers Eddie yanking his head back by the hair. “God, yeah, Eddie,” he groans. “You’re so fucking hot, ’d fuck me so good…”

Eddie groans, rutting against Richie’s leg. “You’re stretched and wet right now,” he says, the words curling in the quiet space of the car. “I could put it in. Fuck you right here.”

The thought is deeply appealing, but the haze of arousal is clearing from Richie’s brain, just slightly, just enough to second-guess it. “I would love that,” he says, pressing a wet kiss to Eddie’s temple. “But it can’t be here.” He laughs when Eddie whines, grinding his cock forward again. Richie strokes his back, smiling, trying to soothe. “Relax, man, there’ll be other times. It’s not like it was over the summer, right?”

Eddie’s movements stutter.

And Richie’s heart fucking plummets.

He grips Eddie by the forearms and jerks him back, holding him there. Richie’s eyes search Eddie’s hard, staring, hunting for— well, he’s not really sure what he wants, but something, _something_ other than all he sees now, which is quickly mounting consternation.

“Richie…?”

“Eddie, you—” Richie swallows. “This is gonna happen again, right? Tell me this is gonna happen again.”

Eddie’s frown only deepens. “Yeah, Rich, I want to see you again, too, but I don’t know—”

A noise of pained disgust rips from Richie’s throat. He shoves Eddie back, and Eddie catches himself with a hand on the bench seat.

“Richie, what—?”

“This _is_ just like the summer, isn’t it?” Richie grits out, bitterness bubbling thick and sickly to the surface. “It’s just like you said then. It was our last chance to see each other, so we might as well...” He scrubs a hand down his face, connecting the dots. “God, what a fuckin’ _line_.”

Eddie’s mouth falls open. “A _line_?”

But Richie is not here for it, for Eddie’s… _incredulity_. He reaches down to his crumpled pants, whips out the comb in his pocket, starts agitatedly to fix his hair. “And I fucking fell for it. Me! The _king_ of lines!”

“It wasn’t a line, I really thought—”

“—that _we’d never see each other again_ , yeah, I remember,” Richie parrots back at him. He tilts his head, taking Eddie in. Messy hair, furrowed eyebrows, mouth agape. Eyes wide and trained on Richie. “And what are you thinking _now_ , Eddie? We’ll never see each other again… until Monday?”

Eddie’s jaw starts to work, starts making little noises of indignation before words come. “I— They— _You_ were the one who said you have an ‘image’!” he splutters, pointing accusingly. “You said you couldn’t even _talk_ to me because of your ‘image’!”

Richie rolls his eyes. “Yeah, well…” he drawls, racking his brain for things to throw in Eddie’s face. Everything that hurts and the kitchen sink. “At least I’m not walking around acting like a fucking saint, giving girls my letterman jacket and then going and _blowing guys in cars_.”

Eddie scrambles to sit up straight, his face going hard. Richie’s heart is racing with adrenaline, with fight. It’s like the first day of school, that night at the garage.

“What the hell, Richie? _You’re_ the one who groped me at the dance! _You’re_ the one checking me out from under the bleachers!”

Richie looks out the window, tapping his fingers on the door.

“Yeah, didn’t know I knew about that, huh?” Eddie sneers triumphantly. “And now you wanna act like _I’m_ the one who’s only in it for sex? When _you’re_ the one who lied about being a virgin?”

Richie’s stomach lurches. He whips head toward him, blood rushing in his ears. “What did Stan tell you?”

The look Eddie gives him tells him that was absolutely, one hundred percent, the wrong thing to say.

Pain flickers briefly before sliding into shocked rage. _“_ You fucked _Stan!?”_

“No!” Richie’s voice is going high but he can’t stop it, can’t fight it. “We barely did anything!”

“Oh really? Is that what he’d say if I asked him?”

“Yes! Probably!” He’s honestly not sure what Stan would say but the absolute last thing Richie wants Eddie finding out about is how Stan made him come in his pants in about thirty seconds flat and then Richie threw up all over both their shoes before hiding in the backseat of Bill’s car the rest of the night. “Besides, that was ages ago. That was before I even met you!”

“Right, so you admit you weren’t a virgin when we met. Even though you said you were.”

“No! I-I mean, yes! I _was_! I mean…” Flailing, flailing. “I mean, what even makes someone a virgin anyway…”

Eddie scoffs loudly. “God. No wonder he was such a dick when I said you were a good guy.”

“I _am_ a good guy!” At Eddie’s noise of disdain, Richie amends, still shrill: “Or at least, I was to _you_. Last summer. Wasn’t I a good guy?”

“It doesn’t fucking matter, Richie! So you were a good guy for two months, big deal. What am I supposed to do the other ten months out of the year?”

Richie sits back, crossing his arms over his chest. “Go steady with Myra Simcox, I guess,” he grumbles.

Eddie almost visibly bristles. “You got something to say about Myra?”

“Maybe I do.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah!”

“Well, why don’t you just fucking say it, then!”

“You treat her like shit.”

Richie fixes Eddie with a stare when he says it, gets to watch Eddie’s eyes flicker with surprise. Surprise that of all the things, _that’s_ what Richie went for.

“Didn’t expect that, did you?” Richie sneers. “That I’d feel for the girl who I just had to have a full conversation with while her fella was throat-deep on my dick?”

Eddie’s face twists in fury. “What the fuck, Richie? Don’t act like you fucking care about _Myra_ , when you’re—”

“—getting mine?” Richie cuts in. “That’s what you were gonna say, right? Because that’s how _you_ think, isn’t it, Eds?”

Eddie sets his jaw, his eyes blazing, but Richie’s not done.

“You think I’m the bad guy?” he says, reaching down to tuck himself back into his briefs, yank his pants leg back up. Anger is making his movements hard and fumbling; he feels the sharp sudden pain of a fingernail bent backwards when he tugs at the hard denim, but it only fuels his rage. “You think _I’m_ the shitheel because I smoke and grease my hair and didn’t tell you I once got to first base with Stanley Uris before I made love to you under the boardwalk?” He awkwardly lifts his hips to shimmy his pants back on, belt buckle clinking. “When you’re the one who’s getting your kicks feeling me up in the hall and trying to slip me the dick at the drive-in, just so on Monday you can leave me high and dry? Go back to being mister golden boy track star, dating the cheerleader? Fuck that.”

Richie’s pants are back on now, his shirt still untucked, his hair probably a mess. He wants to leave. He _should_ leave. But he’s still not done. He hasn’t done as much damage as he wants. He wants to tear this to shreds. He wants to set fire to this whole thing and walk away while it burns to cinders.

It comes to him in a slow roll of sludge in his stomach, bubbling up through his throat.

“You know what, Eddie?” he says, turning to fix him with a sick grin. “I wish you _had_ gone back to Maine. Coulda saved myself a few extra months of thinkin’ I’d ever get to see the guy I met on the beach again.”

Eddie’s just been staring at him this whole time, a muscle in his jaw jumping silently. Now his face sets into hard lines, brutal angles. He says, simply, with feeling: “Fuck you, Richie.”

Richie smiles sweetly back at him. “Well, it’s a little more straightforward than asking to stick it in after you’ve made me come my brains out, but I’m still gonna have to pass.” And he hooks his fingers in the handle to shoulder open the door and step out.

“Wh— Richie!” Eddie’s sputtering, leaning over the bench seat, incredulity on his face. “You can’t walk out of a drive-in!”

“Watch me.” He slams the door and begins to stalk off.

Behind him, he hears the latch of the door open, Eddie’s voice, desperate but still low, still keeping up appearances: “Wait! You left your jacket!”

“Keep it!” Richie shouts over his shoulder, uncaring of who hears. “Suits you better, don’t you think?”

Eddie doesn’t respond to that. Doesn’t chase him down. Doesn’t pull over to pick Richie up as he walks the mile and a half home in the cold.

Richie tells himself that’s what he wants.

***

So Eddie Kaspbrak’s an asshole.

An asshole who got stranded at the drive-in with his metaphorical tail between his legs and a very non-metaphorical ache in his balls.

When he peels out of the parking lot, he’s still furious. Fuming. Replaying the fight in his head over and over, thinking of what he ought to’ve said. Because… it’s ridiculous for Richie to say that sort of thing to him! Richie’s nickname is Trashmouth, for Christ’s sake! Eddie learned within one week that Richie has the reputation of a real bird dog. He’s supposed to have lost it to a girl from St. Bernadette’s years ago, and then spent the last several years leading girls on, getting his and getting out. According to Myra, everyone in the school knows that he and Beverly Marsh have some sort of casual sex agreement. Which tracks with how they were dancing together months ago. Eddie can still see Richie gripping Beverly’s ankle, rubbing his face against her silver heel as he sunk to the floor.

He shifts uncomfortably in his seat. Fuck. He can’t think about that right now.

He also can’t think about how, according to Ben, Richie and Beverly are just very close friends. Ben, who has been going with Beverly for months now. Ben, who gave Beverly his class ring and his letters, which she sometimes wears over the top of her Bruisers jacket while she cheers for him at their track meets. Ben, who leans over the fence when Beverly crooks her finger towards him to receive a kiss and then goes back to the hammer throw with bright red lipstick on his face.

Myra only scowls when she sees them, disdainful of the public displays. She’ll sometimes beckon Eddie over for a kiss on the cheek when he’s done well, or throw her arms around his shoulders after Rydell wins a football game, but something about the affection she shares is always smug.

_This is proper. This is the way it’s done_.

Well, and it is! Eddie agrees with her. Lord knows he doesn’t want anything more. It’s mortifying enough that she still wears his old letterman jacket from Derry; he doesn’t need to bring any more attention to the fact that they’re going—

He pauses. His stomach sinks.

Okay, _that_ … may be a shitty thought.

Oh god, was Richie Tozier right about him?

He knows there are more attentive boyfriends. Obviously, there’s Ben right in front of him, wearing Bev’s lipstick on his face like a badge of honor as he slings the hammer across the field. But Eddie’s been good. Adequate. He sits with Myra at lunch, walks her home from cheerleading practice. He went to the dance with her, for crying out loud.

(Then he went home and jerked off to the thought of pressing the sole of his dress shoe to the crotch of Richie’s suit pants in the middle of the gym, watching him grind his hips up into it.)

But he’s not doing any _damage_ to Myra, is he? He’s a good guy! He’s—

He scrubs a hand down his face. They’re the exact words that Richie said to him.

And that’s not the worst part. The worst part is that, when he thinks about it, when he compares the way he’s treated Myra to the way that, over the summer, Richie treated _him_ , he has to admit…

Richie was a good guy, back then.

And Eddie was a good guy, too. They were good together. Good to each other.

Eddie has a lot to think about on the drive home that night, and all Saturday and Sunday.

And on Monday, Myra is still wearing his letterman jacket.

She’s sitting at the base of the bleachers, the jacket draped over her shoulders while she waits for the other cheerleaders to show up, writing in her notebook. Something twists in Eddie’s stomach at the sight, embarrassment and deep guilt. Embarrassment for Myra, that she’s been wearing his jacket as a symbol of her commitment, as evidence of a relationship that Eddie’s barely given a second thought. Guilt that he’s been letting her.

“Hey, Myra.”

She looks up, smiles when she sees it’s him. Shame flares more strongly in his stomach. “Oh, Eddie!” she exclaims. “You’re early.”

Eddie gives a rueful smile. Tries to make his voice gentle when he asks, “Can we talk?”

Her face twitches in a frown but she nods. “Yes, of course.” She pats the bleachers next to her.

Eddie briefly entertains the thought of continuing to stand, keeping the distance, staying strong, but he sits all the same.

Myra is still smiling. “What did you want to talk about?”

“Why do you always wear my old letterman jacket?”

Well, it’s not the smoothest transition, but at least it’s to the point. To his surprise, Myra doesn’t seem hurt at all, only surprised. Then she looks away, a little bashfully. Eddie wonders if she’s blushing.

“I suppose you think it’s a little silly,” she says.

“No, I don’t,” he lies, guilt twisting in his stomach. “I just don’t know why.”

“Well…” she sighs, crossing her ankles beneath her knees and folding her hands in her lap primly. “I suppose it’s because I had just always dreamed of wearing a boy’s letters.”

The words hang in the air, refusing to land. It’s not what he expected her to say.

_Because I’m proud to be going steady with you. Because I’m your girl. Because I love you, Eddie._

He studies her profile, the wistful slant of her mouth, the way her fingers lightly curl over the elastic of the sleeves. He wonders when the jacket lost his scent, when it started to smell like perfume instead of sweat. If she sprayed it, had it dry-cleaned.

His stomach begins to unclench. Carefully, he says, “But it’s not even for Rydell.”

Myra shrugs. “I know, but it was senior year, and you weren’t going to get lettered until the spring. I still wanted everyone to know I was going with an athlete.”

“So you don’t care that the colors are all wrong,” Eddie says, wheels turning. “Just any letters would do.”

“Well, obviously I would prefer if it was an R,” she laughs. “But this is what you had. And honestly it worked out, because you didn’t even want to wear it after the first day of school, so I’ve been able to—”

“Myra, we should break up.”

Her mouth drops open into a prim little O of surprise, and Eddie actually has to stifle a laugh bubbling up through his throat like champagne. He feels light, free.

_“What?”_ she squawks, shocked.

“You can keep the jacket if you want,” he says—kindly, he thinks. “Since it’s all you care about, and it doesn’t really matter to—”

Her hand cracks across his cheek. It takes him by surprise more than it hurts, but still his hand flies up to cradle the sting, ears ringing as he winces up at her. She’s standing, furiously gathering her things.

“Myra, I’m sor—”

“Don’t bother, you… you _cretin_! You’ve shown your true colors!”

And Eddie can’t help the derisive laugh that slips out, nor can he stop himself from retorting, “And _you’ve_ been wearing my true colors all year, Myra.”

He almost regrets saying it. Her face goes even redder. She draws herself up to her full height, nose in the air as she declares: “Eddie Kaspbrak, you’re a fake and a phony, and I wish I’d never laid eyes on you!” And with one last huff, she rips the jacket from her shoulders and throws it in his face.

When the jacket falls to his lap, Eddie sees her stomping away down the bleachers, pushing past the rest of the cheerleading team. As he massages his jaw, he wonders how long before he’s used to people storming off on him.

Then he hears snickering.

He doesn’t have to look to know who it is. Richie is there, under the bleachers, a cigarette hanging from his lips as he smirks up at him. He looks strange, standing there in a black t-shirt, and it takes Eddie a moment to realize that it’s because he’s wearing his glasses, the ones from the summer. It’s been ages since Eddie’s seen them. The way they magnify his blue eyes. The way they make him look even more vulnerable than he already does without his jacket.

“Didn’t think you’d be there today,” Eddie mutters bitterly, flexing his jaw.

“I didn’t think I’d be here today, either, but here I am,” Richie says with a shrug. “Good thing, too. I wouldn’t have wanted to miss the show.”

Eddie snorts. “Front row seats.”

“No kidding.”

They’re both quiet for a moment. It’s uneasy but somehow hopeful. At least, Eddie thinks so. Maybe Richie’s here to apologize. Or maybe he’s here to hear Eddie apologize.

“You get home all right?”

It’s not an apology, but it feels close. Maybe Richie will hear it in Eddie’s voice.

“Hm? Oh, yeah. You?”

Maybe Eddie can hear it in Richie’s.

“Yeah,” says Eddie, smiling carefully. “It was a close thing, though. You know my ma was at the movie, too? Good thing she didn’t see the car.”

Richie chuckles, scuffing his shoe in the dirt. “Don’t think I coulda convinced her I stole her car to get closer to Jesus.”

Eddie laughs. Lets his hand leave his cheek and fall to his lap. “Richie, you know I…”

Richie jerks his head up, and there’s something in his eyes, something that Eddie wants desperately to read but can’t.

“…still have your jacket,” he ends up saying.

Richie’s eyes fall away again, and Eddie’s heart constricts painfully. “Yeah, well,” Richie says awkwardly, “maybe I don’t wanna be that anymore. Trashmouth.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Or at least, not all the time.” He laughs. “Only problem is it’s still kinda cold out. You couldn’ta waited ’til May to piss me off?”

Eddie laughs, too. He looks down at the crumpled jacket in his lap, an idea forming. “Well, you want a different jacket?” he asks, and when Richie looks up, he lifts it hopefully.

But the smile only drops off Richie’s face. He snorts, shaking his head while smoke streams from his mouth. “You think I want Myra Simcox’s sloppy seconds?”

Eddie’s face falls. “No, I just thought…”

Richie crosses his arms, glances up at Eddie from under his frown. His expression is closed off but hurt, a combination of Trashmouth the apathetic greaser and Richie the sensitive boy behind the prize counter. Eddie doesn’t know what to do.

“You know what, Eds?” he says, his voice weary. “Why don’t you just… come find me when you’re ready to be yourself, huh? We both know those aren’t your true colors, either.”

He drops his cigarette to the dirt, crushes it beneath his shoe, and walks away, quiet and unhurried. It twists in Eddie’s ribs harder than when he slammed the car door in his face.

Eddie sits on the bleachers for a long time. People begin to arrive for track practice. Ben walks onto the field, Bev beside him. Ben is angling himself towards her, listening while she talks, occasionally bending forward in laughter while she throws her head back. She’s not wearing his letters today, but as Eddie watches, she unties the kerchief at her neck and takes Ben’s broad hand in hers to tie it around his wrist. She looks up when she’s done, proud. He smiles, leans in for a kiss.

It comes to him then. He knows what he must do. He holds his head high as he stands. Takes a deep breath and sighs, striding down the bleachers.

The garbage can at the edge of the field has just enough room in it for an old jacket.

***

It’s the end of senior year at Rydell High, and Richie Tozier, class of ’59, is down in the dumps. But it’s been getting better.

He can’t fully explain it, but something about that night at the drive-in made him want to be… different. He tells himself that part of it was leaving his jacket behind. That jacket kinda pulled his whole look together. Everything went with it: the cigs, the hair grease, the attitude.

But when he got home that night after shivering through the cold and dark, he’d taken out the contacts that always hurt his eyes—and cost an arm and a leg, to boot—and he’d never put them back in. He still wears his prescription shades when it’s sunny, but then he switches ’em out for the specs. And no one’s said boo.

Sure, Bev and Bill asked him where his jacket went at first, but he just told them he left it in some guy’s car after a hookup.

That’s right. Some _guy_.

Richie’s heart had been pounding when he said it, but they only looked at each other for a brief moment. Then they both shrugged, and Bev went back to making fun of the fact that someone on the yearbook staff had gotten it past Principal McGee that they listed Bill’s name beside his photo as “Butt Denbrough.”

It was easier, after that. He wore his glasses. He let himself smile in earnest. He started to go light on the hair grease. True to form, his hair went a little frizzy in the front, but Bev told him it was _geek chic_ , which sounded all right. Maybe that’s who he is. He still isn’t sure, but he thinks he’s getting closer.

Anyhow, that’s the Richie Tozier that shows up to the end-of-the-year carnival, ready to celebrate the last day of school. He strides through the field at about sixty percent of his normal swagger, eyes scanning the crowd.

He easily picks out Bev and Ben, by the strength tester game. Ben is leaning up against it, watching with a charmed grin while Bev pretends to spit on her hands before heaving the mallet over her shoulder. A few feet away, Bill is ordering cotton candy from Blanche, the school secretary, who is winding a truly obscene amount of the stuff onto a stick. Stan and Mike are having their picture taken in the photo cut-outs, Mike’s face atop the painting of a cowboy groping Stan’s gigantic tits. The sight of them all warms Richie’s heart at the same time as it makes it ache.

He can’t believe it’s the end of the year.

“Richie!” Bill exclaims, cradling his enormous nest of cotton candy as he crosses the green to him.

“Billiam!” They pat each other on the back, grinning. It seems to catch the attention of the others, who begin to approach. “Congratulations on the end of your detention.”

“Yes, well done, Butt,” teases Bev, Ben’s arm slung over her.

“Mike, Stan, good to see you,” says Richie, grinning. “Now, I know what you’re gonna say, but no need to apologize—I totally understand why my baby was stuck in the garage the _whole year_ , while you neglected her—”

They give each other a look that has Richie’s attention right away. Stan turns back to him, half-smiling. “Actually, Rich, we have a surprise for you.”

A smile breaks out on Richie’s face, open and sincere. He’s still out of practice with it, but something about it lights him up inside. “You’re kidding me.”

“Nope,” says Mike, smiling too. “Come on, we’ll show you.”

They lead Richie—and Bev, Ben, and Bill—through the carnival to the edge, where the different clubs have booths showing off their accomplishments for the year. Art, science, Rotary. Then there are the Rydell Red-Hots, a few underclassmen standing by the fixed-up cars, demonstrating the work done on them, and—

There, at the end of the row, is his _car_.

It’s amazing, like it’s right out of his dreams. The body is white with silver lightning bolts along the sides and the front, the seats upholstered in zebra stripes. Richie breaks into a run when he sees it, itching to get his hands on it.

When he reaches it, he pauses, breath hitched, before he makes contact. He slides his fingers along the driver’s side door, so smooth, running his eyes all over the interior. The material is soft and fuzzy, feels good on his palm, and clean, so clean—he won’t let anyone eat a burger in _this_ baby, and Bill better keep his distance with those sticky cotton-candy fingers—and that’s when he catches sight of something in the backseat, something red and white, and—

“You like it?”

Richie nods helplessly. “Yeah, it’s like a totally different—”

The words die in his throat when he realizes it wasn’t Mike or Stan who asked. He knows that voice, but not that _tone_ , that sultry, gravelly lilt. It can’t be… He whirls around, and—

Has to catch himself on the car door to stop from falling to his knees.

Dark sunglasses. Hair greased and pulled forward. Cigarette between his teeth. Chuck Taylors leading up into tight, cuffed jeans and a clinging white t-shirt, all topped with Richie’s black leather jacket.

_“Eddie?”_

Because it can’t be. _It can’t be._

It is.

It’s Eddie’s normally side-parted brown hair, teased and greased and curled forward. It’s Eddie’s thin lips curled around a cigarette. Eddie’s eyes are hidden behind sunglasses, but Richie knows them. Knows them so well. But never like _this_.

Slowly, Eddie reaches up to pluck the cigarette from his lips. Richie’s eyes are glued to his jaw, his throat, as he tilts his head back and blows smoke into the air. He smirks. “Tell me about it, stud.”

Richie’s knees go weak. Chills spread up his spine, multiplying through his every nerve, overwhelming him. Eddie is— This is—

“Eds,” he laughs, incredulous, eyes running up and down him endlessly. “This— You—”

Eddie slides down his sunglasses to sit at the end of his nose, looks at Richie over them with a cocked eyebrow. “Still think the jacket suits me better?”

His tone sends a spike of heat straight to Richie’s gut. He nods wordlessly. “It’s, uh…” He licks his lips, searching for a word that could properly describe how Eddie in tight pants and leather is making him feel. “…electrifying.”

Eddie smiles at that. He pushes his shades up into his hair and drops the cigarette to the grass, crushes it with his shoe, and steps towards him. Richie straightens up weakly, propped against the car, eyes still shamelessly roaming Eddie’s body.

“I thought I better shape up,” says Eddie, approaching him. “Try to be myself, you know?”

Richie swallows, adjusting his glasses where they’re slipping down his sweaty nose. “This is yourself?” he squeaks.

Eddie laughs and looks away, suddenly a little shy. It fills Richie with affection. “Maybe,” he says. “At least it’s a little closer, I think.”

“Me, too,” Richie says, feeling bold now. “I’m figuring myself out, too.” He lifts a hand toward him, beckoning. “Maybe we can figure it out together. If I’m the one that you want, I mean.”

Eddie looks up, and their eyes meet, and… it’s not the same as the first time, when it was new. But it is summer, and they’re together, and when Eddie takes Richie’s hand, Richie doesn’t feel shy about pulling him forward into his arms and tilting his head down to kiss him. Their mouths meet again, kinder, gentler, moving slowly until Bev whoops and Stan groans at them to get a room. Then Eddie huffs in exasperation against his lips, and Richie breaks away with a laugh that sweetens into a smile when Eddie says:

“Yeah, Rich. You’re the one that I want. Now let’s get outta here.”

***

It’s the end of senior year at Rydell High, and Eddie Kaspbrak, class of ’59, is finally, _finally_ , on top of the world.

He and Richie don’t end up leaving right away. The others convince them to stick around for a while, so Richie and Eddie run around like children, tasting carnival food, riding the Ferris wheel, the Tilt-a-Whirl. They even try the funhouse, which is largely deserted, so Eddie pulls Richie against him to take advantage of the motion of the rolling walkway. The stroke of Richie’s tongue against his leaves him gasping and half-hard.

Eddie loses count of the number of times he catches Richie staring at him, but it’s probably around the same number of times Richie catches Eddie doing the same. Richie just looks so _good_ today: carefree and earnest, crooked smile on full display, his hair curly and fluffy on top of his head, blue eyes shining behind his glasses. Eddie can’t wait for them to be alone.

But it’s nice to be in public, too.

Especially when Richie tangles their fingers together and pulls him in for a chaste kiss. Eddie’s heart flutters even at that, even though it’s a public display and normally he would never, but—

_“Eddie!?”_

He flinches at the voice, intimately aware of who it is before he looks. He pulls away from Richie’s mouth just enough to turn towards Myra. Her jaw is dropped, incredulous and staring at him and Richie, caught up in each other.

“What’s the matter, Myra?” he asks, lifting an eyebrow. “Don’t like my true colors?”

Richie laughs, and then even harder at the squawk Myra lets out in response. “Aren’t you proud of me, Miss Simcox?” he says, grinning. “I found myself a nice Christian boy. I think he’s gonna show me the way.”

Eddie can’t help but laugh either, tugs Richie back down to his mouth as Myra flounces off. He kisses him hard, deep and filthy, grinding forward.

“Wow,” Richie chuckles, trying to keep up, “having her around really does make you horny for me, doesn’t it?”

Eddie nips at his lower lip, impatient. “I’ve been trying to get you outta here for hours. Can you blame me?”

“Well, then let’s blow this popsicle stand, Eds,” Richie says, grinning. “And then you can blow my popsicle stand.”

Eddie rolls his eyes but still drags Richie behind him back to the car.

Twenty minutes later, they’re flying down the highway in the direction that Eddie had planned. Richie’s driving, but Eddie’s navigator, telling him the way without giving away their destination, until Richie catches sight of the city sign, and he turns to Eddie with a grin.

“Eds, you _sap_ ,” he gushes, reaching across the seat to tousle Eddie’s hair.

Eddie jerks away, reaching for the comb in his jacket pocket. “Jeez, Richie, watch the hair!” he grouses, combing it back into place. “You oughta know the work that goes into this.” But Richie only laughs, and then Eddie does too, his chest growing lighter as he begins to scent the salt on the air.

It’s dark by the time they roll up to the beach, which is just fine by them. The season hasn’t properly started yet, so the parking lot is empty, the boardwalk closed. They park as close as they can get to the ocean, and then Eddie leans into the backseat to reach for the beach blanket he brought.

“Oh, shit! I almost forgot.”

“What?” Richie asks. “Condoms?”

Eddie glares at him. “No.”

“Lube? Tell me you didn’t forget the lube, Eds.”

“I remembered the lube,” Eddie grumbles. Obviously he remembered the lube, even if when he put it in the glove compartment he’d only been about fifty percent sure it would get any use.

“Then what?”

Eddie pulls it from the backseat and into the space between them, a little sheepish as he holds it out to Richie. “I just got it today,” he says uncertainly, looking down. “It’s brand new, and since I have yours, I thought maybe you could—”

“Your new letters…?” Richie’s voice sounds shaky and soft, and when Eddie chances a look up, his eyebrows are slanted up into each other.

Eddie’s heart melts in his chest. “Yeah,” he breathes, letting himself smile. “They don’t really go with my new look, you know?”

Richie laughs and reaches, almost reverently, to take the jacket from Eddie. Eddie watches in silence, his heart swelling in his chest, as Richie slides his hands through the sleeves, settles the collar around his neck. He straightens his arms in front of him, and they both crack up at how the sleeves leave his wrists and inches of his forearm bare.

“Aw, shoot,” Richie laughs, a little wetly, and Eddie watches in surprise as he swipes a finger under his eye, beneath his glasses.

“Rich, are you—?”

“It’s _cute_ , all right!? Shut up about it!” Richie exclaims, loud into the night. It makes Eddie bark a laugh, and then Richie falls onto him, weighing him down against the seat, kissing him all over—his face, his ears, his neck, snaking an arm under his lower back to nose at a nipple. And Eddie’s arching up into his mouth, letting himself hum and sigh beneath Richie’s mouth, when Richie sits up abruptly. Eddie whines, but Richie shakes his head, “Nope, not here. This is a _nice car_ , we’re not getting lube and jizz all over it. C’mon, you demon.”

And so they wrap themselves in each other’s jackets, Eddie pulls out the beach blanket (and the lube), and they stumble down into the sand.

Their spot is still there, tucked up under the boardwalk, a shelf of sand beneath the salty wood. They spread out the blanket and crawl on and against each other. It’s chillier than it ever was before, but they have their jackets, and memories of the summer, and Eddie is already heated up from the inside out by the time Richie tugs Eddie’s pants and briefs down his legs and grips his cock loosely in his hands.

“Hard to believe, but I’ve never gotten to do this,” Richie says breathlessly, and then swallows Eddie’s cock into his mouth.

He’s sloppy and awkward with it, at first—far more spirited than Eddie was, his first time—but he’s mindful of his teeth and seems completely enamored with Eddie’s dick, kissing it and licking up the side, pulling back to admire it so many times that Eddie has to fling an arm over his flushed face and mumble, embarrassed, “Richie…”

“It’s a pretty dick, Eds!” is all Richie has to say before he laps at the precome beading at the slit, making Eddie’s hips kick upwards.

Eddie can only handle so much of it before he has to stop Richie, has to yank him back up to his mouth. He doesn’t want to go off too quickly, not keen on the night ending too early, but he doesn’t know what Richie has in mind.

“W-what do you wanna do?” Eddie asks, his lips pressed against Richie’s.

“Fuck,” Richie says bluntly, and Eddie has to jerk his head to the side so he can let out the loud guffaw bursting from his chest without deafening Richie. Richie takes the opportunity to suck at the juncture of Eddie’s neck.

“Okay, yes, me too,” Eddie says, once he’s done laughing. “But like, who?”

“You.”

“Okay, so _you_ want to fuck _me_?”

“ _Ohhh_.” Richie props himself on his elbows. “I see what you’re saying.” He grins in response to Eddie’s deeply unamused look. “Umm, no preference, really. Whatever you’re feelin’.”

“I also don’t have a preference.”

“Well… we haven’t done it with you fucking me…” Richie says, resting his chin in his hand thoughtfully.

“True.”

“But then again, I’d love to get a chance at that spot inside you,” he goes on. “I think it’s called a prostate. I looked it up in an anatomy book.”

Eddie huffs out a laugh. “The things it takes to get Richie Tozier to go to a library.”

“I know, right?” Richie ducks his head down and blows a raspberry on the side of Eddie’s neck, sending ticklish electricity shooting down Eddie’s body, making him writhe, until Richie lets up. “Okay, so…”

“So…?”

“…Flip a coin?”

Eddie scoffs, but Richie is already reaching out a hand, fumbling at his discarded pants, and before Eddie knows it, Richie has a quarter poised on his fist. “You can’t be serious.”

“Why not? Is there a way you wanna do it?”

“Not really…”

“Cool, then heads you fuck me, tails I fuck you. Here we go.”

Richie flips it lightly, just enough to turn a few times, because it’s nearly pitch-black and they don’t want to lose it. When he flips it onto the back of his hand and reveals it, they both peer in close.

“I think that’s tails,” says Eddie, squinting.

Richie shoves the quarter back in his pants pocket. “That means I fuck you.”

“Cool.”

“Yeah.”

They’re quiet for a bit. Eddie reaches in the dark for Richie’s cheek, bringing him to his face to kiss.

“ _Aaaaactually_ …”

Eddie smirks. “Yeah? Finding that you have a preference after all?”

He can hear the grin in Richie’s voice. “I mean, we haven’t done it that way…”

“Well, you know I want to fuck you, Richie,” Eddie murmurs, and he’s surprised to feel the full-body shiver that sends through Richie’s body atop his.

“Whew! Eds.” Richie kisses him hard. “That was—” another hard kiss “—so sexy, _fuck_ …”

“Mm,” Eddie hums, pleased, and reaches for the lube. He slicks up a finger and slides it along Richie’s spine, down between his cheeks, smiling against Richie’s mouth when he spreads his thighs eagerly.

Unfortunately, it quickly becomes clear that the position isn’t ideal. Eddie’s stretching his arm and crooking his wrist, and Richie’s moaning prettily against his mouth, but the angle is all wrong to really make it feel good. After a few minutes, Eddie huffs in frustration.

“Hnn?”

He taps at Richie’s hip. “Roll over.”

“Beethoven,” Richie replies happily, falling to the side with a smile. But when Eddie starts to climb over top of him, Richie puts a hand to his shoulder. “Um, actually…”

Eddie has to stop himself from laughing. “Richie ‘Actually’ Tozier…”

Richie tugs on his earlobe. “I was _going to say_ ,” he hisses, “could you do it, um… backwards?”

Eddie frowns, trying to picture what that would look like. “You mean… with my back to you?”

“No!” Richie laughs. “No, not backwards. I guess I mean… upside down?”

“Oh…” Eddie’s worried he’s still not getting it. “With my head…”

“Yeah, your head down there and your dick up here.”

“Oh. Why?”

Richie’s voice is serious. “It’s a very pretty dick, Eds.”

Eddie flushes and laughs and shrugs, and in the dark, Richie only really knows he’s done one of those, but he must get the picture when he feels Eddie swing a knee over the top of his chest, Eddie’s hard cock smearing the sparse hair there with precome. Richie lets out a guttural _hrrngh_ when Eddie’s hips settle above his face _,_ brings his hands up to grip Eddie’s ass, spreading his cheeks in the dark.

“Richie,” Eddie gasps, fists clenching in the blanket as he feels Richie’s thumb pressing against his hole.

“Mm, _fuck_ ,” Richie groans. “Okay, I was thinking of the dick when I suggested this, but there were… unforeseen advantages…”

Eddie laughs weakly, feeling Richie pressing his open mouth against the skin between his balls and his asshole, laving his tongue there. “God, Richie, I thought I was supposed to be fucking _you_ tonight.”

Richie hums against him. “Maybe,” he says. “Maybe the coin toss was the wrong way to decide that. Maybe we should race.”

Eddie snorts. “Race?”

“Whoever comes first gets fucked.”

“Seems like a lot of fun for whoever that is,” Eddie chuckles. He balances himself more securely over Richie’s hips and re-slicks his fingers with the lube.

“Sounds like you’re scared, Eds,” Richie teases, palming his ass and spreading it in circles. “Scared to lose.”

“I’m not scared. I want to fuck you.”

“Well, make sure you don’t come first, then. Pass me the lube.”

“No.”

Richie waves his knees back and forth in the air petulantly, his thighs brushing the sides of Eddie’s head. “Eddieeee…” he whines. “Play with meee…”

Eddie just laughs and rubs a finger over Richie’s hole a second before sliding it in smoothly and crooking it forward. Richie quickly goes pliant beneath him, his head hitting the blanket with a thud and a hearty groan, building in volume when Eddie ducks his head down to take Richie’s cock into his mouth.

In retrospect, Eddie thinks he probably shouldn’t have tried going steady with a girl after the first time he sucked Richie’s dick and nearly came in his shorts from the feeling of a hot, heavy cock on his tongue. Getting good at blowing Richie over the summer was a deeply selfish endeavor. He loved making Richie moan and jerk beneath him, coming down his throat most times and once on his face, although dunking his head in the freezing-cold ocean at night was not something he wanted to do regularly. Mostly he felt powerful, in control of Richie’s pleasure, coaxing out a reaction, feeling Richie’s already large cock growing even larger, harder, against the roof of his mouth. And simultaneously blowing _and_ fingering Richie, swallowing the salty spurts of precome that practically drool out of the head of Richie’s dick? It makes Eddie feel like a fucking _god_.

So yeah. Probably shouldn’t have tried to go with a girl.

Tonight, Richie is opening up so nicely beneath Eddie, twitching and moaning, his breath hitching when Eddie slides a second finger in and begins the work of truly stretching him. He’s not sure exactly how stretched is enough; when they did it before, Richie got up to three fingers, but Richie’s dick still burned a little when it entered him. Maybe it was from lack of lube, or eagerness on Eddie’s part as he sank down onto Richie nearly in one motion. Eddie finds he’s impatient with his own pleasure but easygoing with Richie’s, greedy for those broken noises that Richie makes when he takes his time, the frantic scrabbling of Richie’s fingernails in his hair when he finally came in the car. Tonight, he’ll be slow. He’ll be thorough.

But then he feels Richie’s hot breath against his rim, followed swiftly by the wet press of the flat of his tongue there, and he promptly loses sight of his goals.

He pops off Richie’s cock with a gasp. “R-Richie!”

Richie smiles against his hole, Eddie can _feel it_. “Well, you wouldn’t give me the lube,” he says, and spreads Eddie’s ass to lick and suck at his rim.

Eddie’s hips jerk forward, humping the air, but it only makes Richie tighten his grip, his fingers digging into the flesh of his ass and hips, holding Eddie there and stroking his tongue against him, _into_ him, making sparks shoot up Eddie’s spine, heat flooding all his limbs. He moans—open-mouthed, full-throated _moans_ —his head spinning. Richie’s tongue is _inside him_ , licking at his walls, stretching him on the fat, writhing muscle, making Eddie desperate for more. Up until this moment, he was dedicated to the idea of fucking Richie into oblivion tonight, but he’s finding Richie’s tongue exceedingly persuasive, reminding him of the feeling of Richie’s cock splitting him open, how good it would feel now that Eddie knows the right angle.

Then Richie hooks a finger into Eddie’s wet rim, pressing it in beside his tongue, and Eddie shudders head to toe, his thighs shaking. He pants. Lets his face fall forward against Richie’s leg as he groans helplessly, rocking his hips back against Richie’s tongue, trying to take more.

Richie laughs breathlessly when he does, lifts a hand off his ass-cheek to bring it back down with a hard _smack_ , making Eddie jump and then moan. “Fuck, Eds,” he groans, voice fucked-out and pleased with himself when he spanks Eddie again, punches another moan out of Eddie’s throat, the delicious sting of it so close to where Richie’s working him open, wet and sloppy and so fucking good. “Guess I’m gonna win, huh?”

It takes Eddie a long moment to realize what he means. By the time he remembers their dumb “race,” Richie’s finger has slid inside him to the knuckle and is pressing at his walls, searching obviously for that spot, that button, that Richie’s so eager to find on Eddie. Eddie grasps this thought like a lifeline, struggling back onto his shaking elbows. His fingers never left Richie’s hole, stayed there while Richie took his tongue to Eddie’s, so Eddie flexes them, reminding Richie they’re there.

Richie gives a whimper, and Eddie smiles, presses up against his spot at the same time as he swallows down his cock, still rock hard, curved stiffly against Richie’s belly.

From there, it’s all wet squelching and desperate noises, whines and groans and gasping breaths, every last sound swallowed by the roaring waves. Eddie focuses on swirling his tongue around the head of Richie’s cock while he spreads him open, still dedicated to fucking Richie at the end of the night. It becomes a near thing once Richie finds Eddie’s own button and begins tapping against it with a finger while Eddie bucks and trembles above him, but Richie is no match for Eddie’s skilled mouth on his cock, and they both know it. When Eddie presses three slippery fingers together and twists them inside of Richie, it’s all but over; Richie’s head falls back from Eddie’s ass with a gut-wrenching groan, his hips fucking up into Eddie’s mouth, his cock growing hard as iron and ready to spill.

And Eddie knows he only has the smallest window. Quick as a whip, he pulls off Richie’s cock and slings his leg over him, hearing Richie’s gasping whine of _Edsss…_ and murmuring only, _I know, Rich, I know, baby,_ as he slicks up his cock, positions himself between Richie’s thighs, hooks a forearm under Richie’s knee, and catches Richie’s wet, stretched-out rim with the head of his cock.

“ _Ohh_ , fuck, _ohh_ , shit,” Richie’s already panting deliriously by the time Eddie starts to press in, grasping at his arms, his shoulders, anywhere he can reach. “ _Ohh_ , fuck, _ohh_ , shit…”

“I know,” Eddie grits out again, stars bursting behind his eyes at the feeling of Richie’s body clenching around him. “God, _fuck_ , I know.”

The slide in is thick and slow and _tight_ , so fucking _tight_ , and Eddie wants to close his eyes and just _feel_ , but beneath him Richie’s head his tipping back, and he has to watch. Has to watch as Richie’s own eyes pinched shut as his mouth slowly falls open in time with the push of Eddie’s cock into him.

“Look so pretty, Rich,” Eddie breathes, captivated. “Look so pretty taking my dick.”

“ _God_ , Eddie,” Richie exhales, eyebrows knotted together in concentration, like he’s trying so hard not to fall to pieces. “I’m so close. I’m so fucking close already.”

“Me, too,” Eddie admits, and bottoms out. They both groan, and Eddie leans down to kiss clumsily at Richie’s jaw, feeling how it makes Richie shiver around him. “I’m gonna move.”

Richie nods helplessly. “Yeah, yeah, fuck, please. Oh my god, _Eds_ …”

So Eddie starts to move.

It’s a little awkward, he’s not used to the motion, but with both of them so close to the edge there’s not much to be done. He draws his hips out and immediately heat floods his limbs at how Richie’s body tries to suck him back in, tries to hold him there. He gasps. Shudders, spinning out already. Decides just to slide back into him, keep it shallow, keep it tight, keep it, keep it, _god_ , just like that, _yes_ , oh fuck, like _that_ , and Richie’s making punched-out noises, sucking in breaths that he doesn’t let out, and Eddie’s close so close so close yes _fuck_ and god Richie should come too, god imagine if Richie came around his dick just like this god _fuck yes so deep so tight so good—_

So Eddie snakes a hand between them and grips it around Richie’s cock and tugs on it, just once, and—

“God, god, _god,_ Eddie, _fuck,_ I’m ccckkk _—”_ and Richie cries out as his body writhes and coils in on itself beneath Eddie’s, come spurting from his cock and painting his chest hot and white in the moonlight and _god_ he only touched him _once_ Richie was that close holy shit holy _shit_ and _—_

“Ffff- _fuck_ , me too, Richie, me too, I’m— _fuck_ ,” Eddie gasps, slamming his hips forward, shoving Richie up the blanket with the force of his thrusts, until he’s buried in him as deep as he can go, falling forward and spilling into the hot clutch of Richie’s body.

They stay wrapped up in each other as long as they can, until the sweat on their bodies turns cool and makes them shiver, until Richie’s legs begin to cramp wrapped around him, until Eddie’s cock softens and threatens to slip out on its own.

Slowly, they separate, sticky and sated and fuck-silly. Eddie rolls onto his side and curls up to face Richie, who has a hand to his sweaty forehead.

“Wow,” Richie breathes, incredulous. “Wow. Wow.”

Eddie giggles, reaches out to run a hand up and down Richie’s arm. “Got anything else to say?”

“Yeah. _Wow_.”

Eddie laughs again, smiling wide. It’s a downside of their place, under the boardwalk: that it’s so dark they can’t see each other’s faces. But there’s something intimate about that, too, something secret and soft. Eddie shimmies closer on the blanket, tucking himself against Richie’s side, and Richie lowers his arm around his shoulders.

“I’m sorry, by the way,” Eddie says.

Richie doesn’t say anything. Eddie can practically hear the gears turning. Finally, he asks, “For ruining me for other people?”

“No,” Eddie laughs, “for being a dick to you all year.”

“Oh. That.”

“Yeah.”

“I’m sorry, too.” He squeezes Eddie’s shoulder tight for a few seconds and then lets him go with a grunt. “We should be together.”

“We’re already together,” Eddie grumbles.

Richie’s voice is exuberant. “We are!?”

Eddie rolls his eyes. “Yes. I said you’re the one that I want, didn’t I?”

“Oh, that’s right. And you gave me your letterman jacket. It’s all comin’ back to me now.”

Eddie snorts.

“Sorry, Eds, you fucked my brains out. It’ll take a while for them to grow back.” Richie turns his head and presses a sloppy kiss to Eddie’s greased-up hair. “Mm. Sleep.”

“No, Richie,” Eddie says patiently. Like every night over the summer. Like always. “We have to get cleaned off and go home.”

“No. Sleep. Sleep together.”

“We already slept together,” Eddie teases, kissing Richie’s chest.

“Mm, Eds gets off a good one.” Richie’s voice is slow and slurred, dull and sweet. “We slept together.”

Eddie hides a smile. “We should go together, too.”

“We _do_ go together,” Richie insists sleepily. “We go together like… ramma lamma lamma.”

Eddie frowns for a second before he shakes his head, laughing. “You’re not making any sense, Rich, c’mon.” He sits up and tugs at Richie’s arm, pushing and pulling until Richie’s upright but still sleepy, still agreeable, still mumbling, _ka dinga da dinga dong_ , and then they stumble together down to the shallow, cold water to wash themselves off, the first swim of the summer.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks all, i hope you enjoyed reading. thanks to the gc and to [laser](https://archiveofourown.org/users/suttapitaka) for the great beta read.
> 
> feel free to follow me on twitter! i’m [@tempestbreak_](https://twitter.com/tempestbreak_).


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